Essays in environmental economics

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URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-704669
Document Type:	Doctoral dissertation
Year of publication:	2025
Place of publication:	Mannheim
University:	Universität Mannheim
Evaluator:	Ulrich Wagner, Bernhard Ganglmair, Laura Grigolon
Date of oral examination:	2025
Publication language:	English
Institution:	School of Law and Economics > Graduiertenkolleg VWL/BWL
Subject:	330 Economics
Classification:	JEL: Q55, Q42, R41,
Keywords (English):	environmental economics , transportation , innovation
Abstract:	This dissertation consists of three self-contained chapters studying questions in the field of environmental economics. The chapters study the effects of policies and interventions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from passenger transportation along three different margins. First, the development of cleaner technologies is an important precursor to reducing emissions. Passenger cars, which account for 9.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions in Europe in 2019, are produced in a highly globalized and vertically disintegrated industry, in which suppliers play an important role for innovation. To improve our understanding of the innovation response to environmental regulation in such settings, chapter one studies how automotive suppliers respond to changes in the CO2 emission standard for passenger cars in Europe. It provides evidence that suppliers redirect their innovation efforts towards technologies needed for compliance with the regulation. Car manufacturers additionally exploit the expertise held by suppliers by sourcing components from innovating firms. Second, once low-emission technologies are adopted, user behavior can sometimes diminish the environmental advantage of these technologies over fossil-fuel based alternatives. Hybrid electric vehicles, which can drive using either electricity or fossil fuels, are an important case in point, as their CO2 emissions per kilometer traveled depend on the share of kilometers traveled using electricity. Chapter two studies the impact of a reduction in the non-monetary cost of charging a car electrically on the use of hybrid electric vehicles and on the adoption of fully-electric cars. Third, travelers often have a choice between alternative more and less polluting transport modes. Chapter three studies how social norms and the perception of moral obligations for environmentally-friendly behavior affect that choice. Besides a thematic focus on policies and interventions to reduce environmental externalities associated with passenger transportation, the chapters are unified by the reliance on econometric methods to exploit quasi-experimental or experimental variation for causal identification.