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Unpacking the green box: Determinants of Environmental Policy Stringency in European countries

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  • Francisco Serranito
  • Donatella Gatti
  • Gaye-Del Lo

Abstract

This paper identifies the determinants of OECD Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS) index using a panel of 21 European countries for the period 2009-2019. If there is a large literature on the macroeconomic, political, and social determinants of EPS, the people’s attitudes or preferences toward environmental policies is still burgeoning. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to estimate the effects of people’s awareness regarding environmental issues on the EPS indicator. Due to the endogeneity of preferences, we have applied an instrumental variable framework to estimate ourempirical model. Our most important result is to show that individual environmental preferences have a positive and significant effect on the level of EPS indicator : on average, a rise in individual preferences of 10% in a country will increase its EPS indicator by 2.30%. Our results have important policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Serranito & Donatella Gatti & Gaye-Del Lo, 2023. "Unpacking the green box: Determinants of Environmental Policy Stringency in European countries," EconomiX Working Papers 2023-25, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    • Handle: RePEc:drm:wpaper:2023-25
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    Cited by:

    1. Donatella Gatti & Julien Vauday, 2023. "Environmental transition through social change and lobbying by citizens," Working Papers hal-04158754, HAL.
    2. Donatella Gatti & Julien Vauday, 2023. "Green cultural transition, environmental taxes, and collective lobbying by social groups of citizens," Working Papers 2023.03, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental policy stringency; Environmental attitudes/concerns; inequality; environmental Kuznets curve; EU;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q0 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General
    • Q1 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture
    • Q3 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation
    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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