The determinants of eco-innovation at the country level. An analysis for OECD countries.

Abstract

The main object of this paper is to study the determinants of eco-innovations worldwide. The rising world’s temperature and the increase of natural disasters occurred in most recent years have increased the concerns about the sustainability of the economic activity. In this regard, ecological innovation has been gaining a special relevance in the past years. Despite this, countries are heterogeneous in terms of producing green innovations. This provides us with an opportunity to understand its determinants and to offer a guidance on how to act for both, companies and governments. The study moves into this direction and tries to understand the institutional factors that would explain differences between countries regarding the number of eco-innovations. We test our hypotheses on data collected from PATSTAT. In particular, the study focuses on the production of green patents in countries belonging to the OECD for the period 2007-2015. The emphasis is placed on institutional factors and the results show that intellectual property rights, the effectiveness of the judicial system and protectionism are determining factors of eco-innovations.