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In the last decades the consequences of the economic growth on the ecosystem are evident, and the environmental protection has become a crucial issue not only in natural sciences setting, but especially from an economic and political point of view. Researchers and policymakers focused the attention on the causes of pollution in order to prevent environmental degradation, and on the consequences that economic and political actions may have on the economic growth. This work, through three different essays, attempts to debate the environmental issue in a wide prospective from different points of view. The first one regards the link between international trade and environment. In some cases, researchers agreed with the idea that trade liberalization could lead to an improvement of environmental quality, while Pollution Haven Hypothesis states that environmental regulation induces firms to relocate dirty production where the environmental regulation is less stringent. The first part of this work gives an overview of this branch of literature, explaining some studies that support and contrast these theories. The research question of the second part concerns the international flow of hazardous waste and its drivers. Using a gravity model for trade, the article tries to underlines the role played by the relative levels of policy stringency and the technological specialization across EU-OECD countries and regions. The last part of the present work, tries to analyse the eco-friendly innovation from a different point of view. Considering a long span of time, the essay investigates the effects that income distribution and institutions may have on the generation of environmental related patents.

I build a quantitative model of economic growth that can be used to evaluate the impact of environmental policy interventions on final-use energy consumption, an important driver of carbon emissions. In the model, energy demand is driven by directed technical change. Energy supply is subject to increasing extraction costs. The model is consistent with aggregate evidence on energy use, efficiency, and prices in the United States, as well as the standard balanced growth facts. I use the model to conduct several policy analyses. First, I examine the impact of energy taxes and compare the results to the standard Cobb-Douglas approach used in the environmental macroeconomics literature. Second, I investigate how the government can use energy taxes and R&D policy to implement the least-cost path that achieves an environmental target. Finally, I study the dynamic impacts of exogenous improvements in energy efficiency and R&D subsidies for energy efficiency, focusing on the role of rebound. All analyses highlight the importance of transition dynamics.

This paper analyzes the effect of environmental policies on the direction of energy innovation acrosscountries over the period 1990-2012. Our novelty is to use threshold regression models to allow fordiscontinuities in policy effectiveness depending on a country's relative competencies in renewable andfossil fuel technologies. We show that the dynamic incentives of environmental policies become effectivejust above the median level of relative competencies. In this critical second regime, market-based policiesare moderately effective in promoting renewable innovation, while commandand-control policies depressfossil based innovation. Finally, market-based policies are more effective to consolidate a greencomparative advantage in the last regime. We illustrate how our approach can be used for policy design inlaggard countries.

This paper analyzes the effect of environmental policies on the direction of energy innovation acrosscountries over the period 1990-2012. Our novelty is to use threshold regression models to allow fordiscontinuities in policy effectiveness depending on a country's relative competencies in renewable andfossil fuel technologies. We show that the dynamic incentives of environmental policies become effectivejust above the median level of relative competencies. In this critical second regime, market-based policiesare moderately effective in promoting renewable innovation, while commandand-control policies depressfossil based innovation. Finally, market-based policies are more effective to consolidate a greencomparative advantage in the last regime. We illustrate how our approach can be used for policy design inlaggard countries.

A common critique to the Kyoto Protocol is that the reduction in emissions of CO2 by countries who comply with it will be (partly) offset by the increase in emissions on the part of other countries (carbon leakage). This paper analyzes the effect of technical change on carbon leakage in a two-country model where only one of the countries enforces an exogenous cap on emissions. Climate policy induces changes in relative prices, which cause carbon leakage through a terms-of-trade effect. However, these changes in relative prices in addition affect the incentives to innovate in different sectors. We allow entrepreneurs to choose the sector for which they innovate (directed technical change). This leads to a counterbalancing induced-technology effect, which always reduces carbon leakage. We therefore conclude that the leakage rates reported in the literature so far may be too high, as these estimates neglect the effect of relative price changes on the incentives to innovate.