The nexus between venture capital investments and environmental innovation: evidence from OECD countries

Abstract

Purpose- Globally, climate change and related environmental degradation can greatly prevent countries from achieving their sustainable growth and development goals. In recent years, nation states have focused on green growth by developing venture capital investment policies that will reduce carbon emissions by giving more importance to environmental technology to overcome this. It is seen that venture capital is among the financing types of investments made by countries regarding environmental technology. In addition, the use of venture capital draws attention among investors seeking opportunities in the field of environmental technology. In this context, the aim of the study is to analyze the effect of venture capital investments on environmental technology innovations. Methodology- The panel data analysis method was used in the study, in which annual data covering the period of 2007-2019 for OECD countries were tested. In the research model, the number of patents related to environmental technology belonging to the countries was used as the dependent variable. The independent variables in the model are venture capital investment amount, foreign direct investment, gross domestic product and carbon emission representing environmental pollution. Within the scope of the analysis, first of all, normality, autocorrelation, multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity assumptions related to panel data analysis were tested. Then, Hausman test was performed and a decision was made regarding the appropriate estimation model between fixed effects and random effects models. Findings- As a result of the econometric analysis, a statistically positive and significant relationship was found between the environmental technology indicator and the variables of venture capital investments and gross domestic product. On the other hand, a statistically negative and significant relationship was found between the environmental pollution indicator and foreign direct investment and the environmental technological innovation variable. Conclusion- The results obtained provide evidence that venture capital investments are important on the environmental technological innovation of countries and contribute to environmental innovation. It also indicates that there will be an increase in the level of carbon emissions as the level of environmental technological innovation of countries decreases. Therefore, it can be recommended to encourage venture capital investments that support environmental technological innovation. On the other hand, an increase in foreign direct investment negatively affects the level of environmental technological innovation. As a reason for this, it can be said that foreign capital investments by countries cannot be sufficiently channeled into areas or sectors that contribute to environmental technological innovation. Keywords: Venture capital, environmental technology, panel data analysis, OECD countries JEL Codes: C58, G24, Q56