IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ecinnt/v24y2015i5p436-456.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public investments in sustainable technology: an evaluation of North Carolina's Green Business Fund

Author

Listed:
  • Michael J. Hall

Abstract

North Carolina's Green Business Fund, a state-level sustainability-technology program, is evaluated in terms of net economic surplus. To conduct this evaluation, this paper develops and implements an economic model from which values of producer and consumer surplus can be measured. Data limitations drive modeling choices, namely the model must be applicable when the researcher is unable to decompose revenues into separate prices and quantities. The method used in this paper is an extension of one previously used to examine SBIR programs facing similar data limitations. An additional facet of the modeling method is a specification such that the presence of an existing technology can also be taken into account. This allows the evaluation to focus only on newly created surplus. The findings from this evaluation suggest that the Green Business Fund has resulted in a positive net social surplus and, when imposing an elasticity of demand drawn from the literature on other sustainability-based technologies, a benefit-to-cost ratio of above 2.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael J. Hall, 2015. "Public investments in sustainable technology: an evaluation of North Carolina's Green Business Fund," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 436-456, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ecinnt:v:24:y:2015:i:5:p:436-456
    DOI: 10.1080/10438599.2014.988502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10438599.2014.988502
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10438599.2014.988502?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jaffe, Adam B. & Newell, Richard G. & Stavins, Robert N., 2005. "A tale of two market failures: Technology and environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2-3), pages 164-174, August.
    2. Stuart D. Allen & Stephen K. Layson & Albert N. Link, 2013. "Public gains from entrepreneurial research: Inferences about the economic value of public support of the Small Business Innovation Research program," Chapters, in: Public Support of Innovation in Entrepreneurial Firms, chapter 6, pages 105-112, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Albert Link, 1999. "Public/Private Partnerships In The United States," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 191-217.
    4. David Anthoff & Robert Hahn, 2010. "Government failure and market failure: on the inefficiency of environmental and energy policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(2), pages 197-224, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Link, Albert, 2022. "An Assessment and Evaluation of the U.S. Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program," UNCG Economics Working Papers 22-8, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Purkus, Alexandra & Gawel, Erik & Thrän, Daniela, 2012. "Bioenergy governance between market and government failures: A new institutional economics perspective," UFZ Discussion Papers 13/2012, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    2. Fabio Antoniou & Roland Strausz, 2014. "The Effectiveness of Taxation and Feed-in Tariffs," CESifo Working Paper Series 4788, CESifo.
    3. Bosetti, Valentina & Carraro, Carlo & Duval, Romain & Tavoni, Massimo, 2011. "What should we expect from innovation? A model-based assessment of the environmental and mitigation cost implications of climate-related R&D," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1313-1320.
    4. Feser, Daniel & Runst, Petrik, 2015. "Energy efficiency consultants as change agents? Examining the reasons for EECs’ limited success," ifh Working Papers 1 (2015), Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh).
    5. Patrice Bougette & Christophe Charlier, 2019. "Subsidies and Countervailing Measures in the EU Biofuel Industry: A Welfare Analysis," Post-Print halshs-02306022, HAL.
    6. Hille, Erik & Althammer, Wilhelm & Diederich, Henning, 2020. "Environmental regulation and innovation in renewable energy technologies: Does the policy instrument matter?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    7. Vitaliy Roud & Thomas Wolfgang Thurner, 2018. "The Influence of State‐Ownership on Eco‐Innovations in Russian Manufacturing Firms," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 22(5), pages 1213-1227, October.
    8. Emanuele Massetti & Lea Nicita, 2010. "The Optimal Climate Policy Portfolio when Knowledge Spills across Sectors," CESifo Working Paper Series 2988, CESifo.
    9. Giancarlo Giudici & Massimiliano Guerini & Cristina Rossi-Lamastra, 2019. "The creation of cleantech startups at the local level: the role of knowledge availability and environmental awareness," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 815-830, April.
    10. Christoph P. Kiefer & Pablo Del Río González & Javier Carrillo‐Hermosilla, 2019. "Drivers and barriers of eco‐innovation types for sustainable transitions: A quantitative perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 155-172, January.
    11. Söderholm, Patrik & Pettersson, Maria, 2011. "Offshore wind power policy and planning in Sweden," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 518-525, February.
    12. Francesco Vona & Francesco Nicolli & Lionel Nesta, 2012. "Determinants of renewable energy innovation: environmental policies vs. market regulation," Sciences Po publications 2012-05, Sciences Po.
    13. Xiding Chen & Qinghua Huang & Weilun Huang & Xue Li, 2018. "The Impact of Sustainable Development Technology on a Small Economy—The Case of Energy-Saving Technology," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-11, February.
    14. Bhardwaj, Chandan & Axsen, Jonn & Kern, Florian & McCollum, David, 2020. "Why have multiple climate policies for light-duty vehicles? Policy mix rationales, interactions and research gaps," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 309-326.
    15. Squires, Dale & Vestergaard, Niels, 2013. "Technical change in fisheries," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 286-292.
    16. Orsatti, Gianluca & Pezzoni, Michele & Quatraro, Francesco, 2017. "Where Do Green Technologies Come From? Inventor Teams’ Recombinant Capabilities and the Creation of New Knowledge," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201711, University of Turin.
    17. Nicolli, Francesco & Vona, Francesco, 2012. "The Evolution of Renewable Energy Policy in OECD Countries: Aggregate Indicators and Determinants," Climate Change and Sustainable Development 130897, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    18. Jae Yun Jeong & Inje Kang & Ki Seok Choi & Byeong-Hee Lee, 2018. "Network Analysis on Green Technology in National Research and Development Projects in Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-12, April.
    19. Yu-Hong Ai & Di-Yun Peng & Huan-Huan Xiong, 2021. "Impact of Environmental Regulation Intensity on Green Technology Innovation: From the Perspective of Political and Business Connections," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-23, April.
    20. Michael Peneder & Spyros Arvanitis & Christian Rammer & Tobias Stucki & Martin Wörter, 2022. "Policy instruments and self-reported impacts of the adoption of energy saving technologies in the DACH region," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 369-404, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ecinnt:v:24:y:2015:i:5:p:436-456. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GEIN20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.