A recent paper by Dr Takahiko Kiso, lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and member of the Aberdeen Centre for Research in Energy Economics and Finance (ACREEF), has received an honourable mention at the EAERE Award for the Best Paper Published in Environmental and Resource Economics in 2019. The paper titled 'Environmental Policy and Induced Technological Change: Evidence from Automobile Fuel Economy Regulations' was published in the journal Environmental and Resource Economics. The paper investigates whether environmental or energy-efficiency regulations induce innovations in relevant technologies through focusing on the tightening of Japanese fuel economy regulations in the 1990s and the early 2000s.
A recent paper by Dr Takahiko Kiso, Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen Business School and member of the Aberdeen Centre for Research in Energy Economics and Finance (ACREEF), has received an honourable mention at the EAERE Award for the Best Paper Published in Environmental and Resource Economicsin 2019. The paper titled ‘Environmental Policy and Induced Technological Change: Evidence from Automobile Fuel Economy Regulations’ was published in the journal Environmental and Resource Economics. The paper investigates whether environmental or energy-efficiency regulations induce innovations in relevant technologies through focusing on the tightening of Japanese fuel economy regulations in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Dr Kiso’s paper was awarded a 'Highly Commended' status, and was cited as 'representing very substantial contribution to the field of environmental and resource economics'.
Dr Takahiko's paper details are presented below.
ABSTRACT: This paper investigates whether environmental or energy-efficiency regulations induce innovations in relevant technologies through focusing on the tightening of Japanese fuel economy regulations in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Unlike previous studies that analyze patent data, I use vehicle-level specification data for 1985–2004 to estimate whether regulatory pressure accelerated technological progress in fuel efficiency. I compare Japanese automakers with selected American and European automakers in a difference-in-differences framework. The estimation results provide strong evidence for induced technological change: conditional on other vehicle attributes and the production cost, the regulatory tightening induced at least a 3–5% improvement in the average Japanese vehicle’s fuel economy relative to a counterfactual case with no regulatory change, an effect which would have taken at least 4–7 years to be realized with no pressure from fuel economy regulations or fuel prices.