www.researchgate.net
Open in
urlscan Pro
2606:4700:4400::6812:2909
Public Scan
URL:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368694777_Inclusive_green_growth_in_OECD_countries_what_are_the_impacts_of_stringent...
Submission: On January 08 via api from US — Scanned from US
Submission: On January 08 via api from US — Scanned from US
Form analysis
3 forms found in the DOMGET search
<form method="GET" action="search" class="lite-page__header-search-input-wrapper"><input type="hidden" name="context" readonly="" value="publicSearchHeader"><input placeholder="Search for publications, researchers, or questions" name="q"
autocomplete="off" class="lite-page__header-search-input"><button
class="nova-legacy-c-button nova-legacy-c-button--align-center nova-legacy-c-button--radius-full nova-legacy-c-button--size-s nova-legacy-c-button--color-white nova-legacy-c-button--theme-ghost nova-legacy-c-button--width-square lite-page__header-search-button"
type="submit" width="square"><span class="nova-legacy-c-button__label"><svg aria-hidden="true"
class="nova-legacy-e-icon nova-legacy-e-icon--size-s nova-legacy-e-icon--theme-bare nova-legacy-e-icon--color-inherit nova-legacy-e-icon--luminosity-medium">
<use xlink:href="/m/4154823318689881/images/icons/nova/icon-stack-s.svg#magnifier-s"></use>
</svg></span></button></form>
Name: loginForm — POST https://www.researchgate.net/login?_sg=05-Khu022U40ChCRio0OcpW2_sMHStbHusm9nirrk35JxrBtz0-MjLhvIV_eLc7YRqPVZT-lfqMotw
<form method="post" action="https://www.researchgate.net/login?_sg=05-Khu022U40ChCRio0OcpW2_sMHStbHusm9nirrk35JxrBtz0-MjLhvIV_eLc7YRqPVZT-lfqMotw" name="loginForm" id="headerLoginForm"><input type="hidden" name="request_token"
value="aad-ecFzQ4i8s2GGkwBAzcYw4iCN1JtuO1ohKZ2wzg+cq6JJ7SauJk4UuhD1BHVMBsaKZv4ERQj0qsll3M+Rb/WJ0wGd2aF5o+4phlw8G4ulbvgLejaYkHhc2tJaN+eHJlxSA/qXDIfDh4H3hTOPBU1ECTVKghZLa7DzyQX6/kzLE1XyXg9YLacv4agPqtIYGoEk5QbhRzN+V0cVQtOAOkHPEaGX/AN/L5WyTxGbKPIUJoR24kaXjos2JXQ8Gwl4xlMrGF10C+BLS9rtehyZqHo="><input
type="hidden" name="urlAfterLogin" value="publication/368694777_Inclusive_green_growth_in_OECD_countries_what_are_the_impacts_of_stringent_environmental_and_employment_regulations"><input type="hidden" name="invalidPasswordCount" value="0"><input
type="hidden" name="headerLogin" value="yes">
<div class="lite-page__header-login-item"><label class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-m nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-none nova-legacy-e-text--color-inherit lite-page__header-login-label"
for="input-header-login">Email <div class="lite-page-tooltip "><svg aria-hidden="true" class="nova-legacy-e-icon nova-legacy-e-icon--size-s nova-legacy-e-icon--theme-bare nova-legacy-e-icon--color-inherit nova-legacy-e-icon--luminosity-medium">
<use xlink:href="/m/4154823318689881/images/icons/nova/icon-stack-s.svg#info-circle-s"></use>
</svg>
<div class="lite-page-tooltip__content lite-page-tooltip__content--above">
<div class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-s nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-none nova-legacy-e-text--color-inherit"><b>Tip:</b> Most researchers use their institutional email address as their
ResearchGate login</div>
<div class="lite-page-tooltip__arrow lite-page-tooltip__arrow--above">
<div class="lite-page-tooltip__arrow-tip"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div></label></div><input type="email" required="" placeholder="" id="input-header-login" name="login" autocomplete="email" tabindex="1"
class="nova-legacy-e-input__field nova-legacy-e-input__field--size-m lite-page__header-login-item nova-legacy-e-input__ambient nova-legacy-e-input__ambient--theme-default">
<div class="lite-page__header-login-item"><label class="lite-page__header-login-label"
for="input-header-password">Password</label><a class="nova-legacy-e-link nova-legacy-e-link--color-blue nova-legacy-e-link--theme-bare lite-page__header-login-forgot" href="application.LostPassword.html">Forgot password?</a></div><input
type="password" required="" placeholder="" id="input-header-password" name="password" autocomplete="current-password" tabindex="2"
class="nova-legacy-e-input__field nova-legacy-e-input__field--size-m lite-page__header-login-item nova-legacy-e-input__ambient nova-legacy-e-input__ambient--theme-default"><label
class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox lite-page__header-login-checkbox"><input type="checkbox" class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox__input" aria-invalid="false" name="setLoginCookie" tabindex="3" value="yes" checked=""><span
class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox__checkmark"></span><span class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox__label"> Keep me logged in</span></label>
<div
class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item nova-legacy-l-flex nova-legacy-l-flex--gutter-m nova-legacy-l-flex--direction-column@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--align-items-stretch@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--justify-content-center@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--wrap-nowrap@s-up">
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item"><button
class="nova-legacy-c-button nova-legacy-c-button--align-center nova-legacy-c-button--radius-m nova-legacy-c-button--size-m nova-legacy-c-button--color-blue nova-legacy-c-button--theme-solid nova-legacy-c-button--width-full" type="submit"
width="full" tabindex="4"><span class="nova-legacy-c-button__label">Log in</span></button></div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item nova-legacy-l-flex__item--align-self-center@s-up">
<div class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-s nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-none nova-legacy-e-text--color-inherit">or</div>
</div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item">
<div
class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item nova-legacy-l-flex nova-legacy-l-flex--gutter-m nova-legacy-l-flex--direction-column@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--align-items-center@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--justify-content-flex-start@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--wrap-nowrap@s-up">
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item">
<a href="connector/google"><div style="display:inline-block;width:247px;height:40px;text-align:left;border-radius:2px;white-space:nowrap;color:#444;background:#4285F4"><span style="margin:1px 0 0 1px;display:inline-block;vertical-align:middle;width:38px;height:38px;background:url('images/socialNetworks/logos-official-2019-05/google-logo.svg') transparent 50% no-repeat"></span><span style="color:#FFF;display:inline-block;vertical-align:middle;padding-left:15px;padding-right:42px;font-size:16px;font-family:Roboto, sans-serif">Continue with Google</span></div></a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</form>
Name: loginForm — POST https://www.researchgate.net/login?_sg=05-Khu022U40ChCRio0OcpW2_sMHStbHusm9nirrk35JxrBtz0-MjLhvIV_eLc7YRqPVZT-lfqMotw
<form method="post" action="https://www.researchgate.net/login?_sg=05-Khu022U40ChCRio0OcpW2_sMHStbHusm9nirrk35JxrBtz0-MjLhvIV_eLc7YRqPVZT-lfqMotw" name="loginForm" id="modalLoginForm"><input type="hidden" name="request_token"
value="aad-ecFzQ4i8s2GGkwBAzcYw4iCN1JtuO1ohKZ2wzg+cq6JJ7SauJk4UuhD1BHVMBsaKZv4ERQj0qsll3M+Rb/WJ0wGd2aF5o+4phlw8G4ulbvgLejaYkHhc2tJaN+eHJlxSA/qXDIfDh4H3hTOPBU1ECTVKghZLa7DzyQX6/kzLE1XyXg9YLacv4agPqtIYGoEk5QbhRzN+V0cVQtOAOkHPEaGX/AN/L5WyTxGbKPIUJoR24kaXjos2JXQ8Gwl4xlMrGF10C+BLS9rtehyZqHo="><input
type="hidden" name="urlAfterLogin" value="publication/368694777_Inclusive_green_growth_in_OECD_countries_what_are_the_impacts_of_stringent_environmental_and_employment_regulations"><input type="hidden" name="invalidPasswordCount" value="0"><input
type="hidden" name="modalLogin" value="yes">
<div class="nova-legacy-l-form-group nova-legacy-l-form-group--layout-stack nova-legacy-l-form-group--gutter-s">
<div class="nova-legacy-l-form-group__item nova-legacy-l-form-group__item--width-auto@m-up"><label
class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-m nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-xxs nova-legacy-e-text--color-inherit nova-legacy-e-label" for="input-modal-login-label"><span
class="nova-legacy-e-label__text">Email <div class="lite-page-tooltip "><span class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-m nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-none nova-legacy-e-text--color-grey-500">·
Hint</span>
<div class="lite-page-tooltip__content lite-page-tooltip__content--above">
<div class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-s nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-none nova-legacy-e-text--color-inherit"><b>Tip:</b> Most researchers use their institutional email address as
their ResearchGate login</div>
<div class="lite-page-tooltip__arrow lite-page-tooltip__arrow--above">
<div class="lite-page-tooltip__arrow-tip"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div></span></label><input type="email" required="" placeholder="Enter your email" id="input-modal-login" name="login" autocomplete="email" tabindex="1"
class="nova-legacy-e-input__field nova-legacy-e-input__field--size-m nova-legacy-e-input__ambient nova-legacy-e-input__ambient--theme-default"></div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-form-group__item nova-legacy-l-form-group__item--width-auto@m-up">
<div class="lite-page-modal__forgot"><label class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-m nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-xxs nova-legacy-e-text--color-inherit nova-legacy-e-label"
for="input-modal-password-label"><span
class="nova-legacy-e-label__text">Password</span></label><a class="nova-legacy-e-link nova-legacy-e-link--color-blue nova-legacy-e-link--theme-bare lite-page-modal__forgot-link" href="application.LostPassword.html">Forgot password?</a>
</div><input type="password" required="" placeholder="" id="input-modal-password" name="password" autocomplete="current-password" tabindex="2"
class="nova-legacy-e-input__field nova-legacy-e-input__field--size-m nova-legacy-e-input__ambient nova-legacy-e-input__ambient--theme-default">
</div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-form-group__item nova-legacy-l-form-group__item--width-auto@m-up"><label class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox"><input type="checkbox" class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox__input" aria-invalid="false" checked="" value="yes"
name="setLoginCookie" tabindex="3"><span class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox__checkmark"></span><span class="nova-legacy-e-checkbox__label"> Keep me logged in</span></label></div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-form-group__item nova-legacy-l-form-group__item--width-auto@m-up"><button
class="nova-legacy-c-button nova-legacy-c-button--align-center nova-legacy-c-button--radius-m nova-legacy-c-button--size-m nova-legacy-c-button--color-blue nova-legacy-c-button--theme-solid nova-legacy-c-button--width-full" type="submit"
width="full" tabindex="4"><span class="nova-legacy-c-button__label">Log in</span></button></div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-form-group__item nova-legacy-l-form-group__item--width-auto@m-up">
<div
class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item nova-legacy-l-flex nova-legacy-l-flex--gutter-m nova-legacy-l-flex--direction-column@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--align-items-center@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--justify-content-flex-start@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--wrap-nowrap@s-up">
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item">
<div class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-s nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-none nova-legacy-e-text--color-inherit">or</div>
</div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item">
<div
class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item nova-legacy-l-flex nova-legacy-l-flex--gutter-m nova-legacy-l-flex--direction-column@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--align-items-center@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--justify-content-flex-start@s-up nova-legacy-l-flex--wrap-nowrap@s-up">
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item">
<a href="connector/google"><div style="display:inline-block;width:247px;height:40px;text-align:left;border-radius:2px;white-space:nowrap;color:#444;background:#4285F4"><span style="margin:1px 0 0 1px;display:inline-block;vertical-align:middle;width:38px;height:38px;background:url('images/socialNetworks/logos-official-2019-05/google-logo.svg') transparent 50% no-repeat"></span><span style="color:#FFF;display:inline-block;vertical-align:middle;padding-left:15px;padding-right:42px;font-size:16px;font-family:Roboto, sans-serif">Continue with Google</span></div></a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="nova-legacy-l-flex__item">
<div class="nova-legacy-e-text nova-legacy-e-text--size-s nova-legacy-e-text--family-sans-serif nova-legacy-e-text--spacing-none nova-legacy-e-text--color-grey-500" align="center">No account?
<a class="nova-legacy-e-link nova-legacy-e-link--color-blue nova-legacy-e-link--theme-decorated" href="signup.SignUp.html?hdrsu=1&_sg%5B0%5D=qMJKAVW1GCRDDEKM21VUAnpxOCXJpQ5E2pfEAv07PZKBhBBfqMMUJWma8dJHpGS8S7ibFigOjNodPzaVKbrTkkCe5Eg">Sign up</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</form>
Text Content
ArticlePDF Available INCLUSIVE GREEN GROWTH IN OECD COUNTRIES: WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF STRINGENT ENVIRONMENTAL AND EMPLOYMENT REGULATIONS? * February 2023 * Environmental Economics and Policy Studies DOI:10.1007/s10018-023-00362-4 Authors: Béchir Ben Lahouel * IPAG Business School Taleb Lotfi * Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales de Tunis Shunsuke Managi Shunsuke Managi * This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet. Nadia Abaoub Nadia Abaoub * This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet. Download full-text PDFRead full-text Download full-text PDF Read full-text Download citation Copy link Link copied -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read full-text Download citation Copy link Link copied Citations (11) References (72) Figures (1) ABSTRACT AND FIGURES Inclusive green growth (IGG) is a new way to achieve sustainable development through the realization of economic growth, social equity, and environmental protection. Empirical research about measuring IGG and exploring its driving factors is scarce. Based on panel data from 26 OECD countries over the period 1990–2012, this study aims to examine the impacts of stringent environmental and employment regulations on countries’ competitiveness, represented by the IGG index. Therefore, we adopt the slacks-based measure model with directional distance function (SBM-DDF) and the global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (GMLPI) to calculate an IGG index, and a dynamic panel data regression analysis to establish the impacts of different regulatory policies on IGG. The improvement in the IGG and its components is modest over the period and there is room for improvement. The regression results show that the environmental policy stringency, the employment protection legislation, and their interaction are beneficial to the promotion of IGG. Some implications for the OECD countries are provided. Inclusive green growth and its sources … Figures - uploaded by Béchir Ben Lahouel Author content All figure content in this area was uploaded by Béchir Ben Lahouel Content may be subject to copyright. Discover the world's research * 25+ million members * 160+ million publication pages * 2.3+ billion citations Join for free Powered By 00:00/00:54 10 Pheromone in baby mouse tears makes females less interested in sex Share Next Stay Public Full-text 1 Content uploaded by Béchir Ben Lahouel Author content All content in this area was uploaded by Béchir Ben Lahouel on Jul 26, 2024 Content may be subject to copyright. Vol.:(0123456789) Environmental Economics and Policy Studies https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-023-00362-4 1 3 RESEARCH ARTICLE Inclusive green growth inOECD countries: what are theimpacts ofstringent environmental andemployment regulations? BéchirBenLahouel1· LotTaleb2· ShunsukeManagi3· NadiaAbaoub4 Received: 18 February 2022 / Accepted: 27 January 2023 © Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 2023 Abstract Inclusive green growth (IGG) is a new way to achieve sustainable development through the realization of economic growth, social equity, and environmental pro- tection. Empirical research about measuring IGG and exploring its driving factors is scarce. Based on panel data from 26 OECD countries over the period 1990–2012, this study aims to examine the impacts of stringent environmental and employment regulations on countries’ competitiveness, represented by the IGG index. Therefore, we adopt the slacks-based measure model with directional distance function (SBM- DDF) and the global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (GMLPI) to calcu- late an IGG index, and a dynamic panel data regression analysis to establish the impacts of different regulatory policies on IGG. The improvement in the IGG and its components is modest over the period and there is room for improvement. The regression results show that the environmental policy stringency, the employment protection legislation, and their interaction are beneficial to the promotion of IGG. Some implications for the OECD countries are provided. Keywords Inclusive green growth· Environmental policy stringency· Employment protection legislation· Global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index· Data envelopment analysis· OECD countries 1 Introduction The concept of inclusive green growth (IGG) was officially put forward at the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio + 20) to merge the green growth interests of the industrialized world with the inclusive develop- ment interests of the developing world. The theme of the conference was “green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication” and * Béchir Ben Lahouel b.benlahouel@ipag.fr Extended author information available on the last page of the article Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 proposed the IGG to find new pathways of sustainable development. In the same year and in the lead up to Rio + 20, the World Bank released the “Inclusive green growth: the road to sustainable development” report arguing that sustained growth is necessary to meet the urgent development needs of the world’s poor and that it is possible to grow more cleanly without growing more slowly. Along with the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2016, it was announced that the international community should pay more attention to addressing the triple bottom line, which means inclusive growth must be green and green growth must be inclusive. Thus, the concept of IGG, which aims to eradicate poverty and protect the environment, has been adopted as one of the development strategies of several coun- tries around the world (Chen etal. 2020). The concept of IGG comes from the integration of two development concepts, namely green growth (GG) and inclusive growth (IG). GG is considered as envi- ronmentally sustainable economic growth. It is defined as a growth that is efficient, clean, and resilient. Efficient in its use of natural resources, clean in that it promotes environmental pollution and mitigates climate change, and resilient in that it consid- ers natural hazards and the role of environmental management and natural capital in preventing physical catastrophes (World Bank 2012). However, GG is not inherently inclusive as it cannot effectively deal with the current welfare gap and poverty (Sun etal. 2020). That is, if GG is not inclusive, then GG for any purpose is unsustain- able (World Bank 2012). On the other hand, IG is a concept that encompasses equal opportunity, social equity, and benefit sharing (Chen etal. 2020). IG recognizes the complementarity between economic growth and social achievements through the creation, promotion, and provision of fair and equal access to economic opportu- nities. Both concepts (i.e., GG and IG) emphasize the integration of the three sys- tems of economy, environment, and society in development. Whereas GG mainly focuses on the coordination between economic growth and environmental sustain- ability, IG considers the overall coordination between economic growth and social improvement. In this paper, we follow Bouma and Berkhout (2015) and argue that the con- cept of IGG should be understood in the context of the current non-green and non- inclusive growth of the global economy. From this perspective, IGG recognizes the trade-offs between growth, nature, and inclusion, but emphasizes that within the overarching goal of social welfare, there is room for synergies. From its social dimension, IGG means improving human welfare, reducing social inequality, and distributing necessary goods such as work, life, and energy. From its economic per- spective, which refers to utility and not just income, IGG means that the economy is not simply defined by GDP growth, but rather is a green economy with continu- ous technological innovation, continuous environmental improvement, and reduced economic inequality. From its environmental dimension, IGG means “sustainable development” alongside resource conservation and environmental protection under conditions of ecological balance (Albagoury 2016). There are synergies between growth, inclusiveness, and ecology, but there are often trade-offs. Although the economic growth, recorded over the past two dec- ades, has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, it has too often been at the expense of the environment (World Bank 2012). Due to a variety of 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies market, policy, and institutional failures, the world’s natural capital tends to be used economically inefficiently and wasted, without adequate consideration of the true social costs of resource depletion and without appropriate ploughing back into other sources of revenue (World Bank 2012). This implies that policies for IGG should be carefully designed to maximize benefits and minimize costs for the most disadvantaged and that policies and actions with irreversible and neg- ative environmental impacts should be avoided. Therefore, the effectiveness of IGG strategies depends on policymakers’ attention to the underlying market and governance failures that prevent current growth paths from being inclusive and green (Bouma and Berkhout 2015). As how to make growth greener and more inclusive, most countries in the world have enacted a series of environmental and social regulations. Currently, schol- ars mainly discuss the impact of environmental regulations on GG at the national, regional, industry, and corporate levels (Filippini and Srinivasan 2021; Xie etal. 2017; Yang etal. 2021). However, whether the combination of environmental and social regulations can promote IGG has not yet been studied. Although there is not yet a consensus or established models for measuring an IGG index, it is still possible to analyze it from a total factor productivity (TFP) perspective (along with green growth and inclusive growth), taking into consideration economic, social, and envi- ronmental factors as outputs. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique has been widely applied (Lahouel 2016; Nakano and Managi 2008) in previous research to carry out multidimensional input–output analysis, i.e., evaluating desirable outputs (economic and social benefits) against undesirable outputs (environmental burdens). Combined with the Malmquist index, DEA is currently one of the most important methods employed to calculate the TFP (Lahouel etal. 2021, 2022). Therefore, this paper introduces the concept of inclusive green growth total factor productivity (IGGTFP) and aims to analyze the impacts of environmental and social regulations on inclusive and green development in a panel of OECD countries. The IGGTFP is used to measure a country’s competitiveness instead of the traditional TFP, because it adds energy consumption, environmental pollution, and social welfare as addi- tional constraints into the analytical framework of economic development (Jiang etal. 2021; Zhao and Yang 2017). This paper adopts the global Malmquist-Luen- berger productivity index (GMLPI) based on the slacks-based measure directional distance function (SBM-DDF) to measure the IGGTFP. It was argued that environmental and inclusiveness outcomes are not simply a function of economic development, but also a consequence of policy choices (Li etal. 2019; Wang and Shen 2016). Smart solutions to tackle free rider behavior, market and governance failures are needed by making use of standards, incentives, regulations, and taxes (Bouma and Berkhout 2015; Esty and Porter 2005). In this respect, a country’s environmental regulatory regime and other institutional under- pinnings (e.g., labor regulations) might significantly influence IGG. As far as we know, no study has simultaneously examined the impact of environ- mental and employment protection regulations on inclusive green growth. There- fore, our main research question can be defined as follows: What are the effects of the environmental and employment policy stringency as well as their interaction on inclusive green growth of OECD countries? Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 This article contributes to filling this gap by providing cross-country evidence on the impact of stringent environmental and employment protection regulations on inclusive green growth productivity to better inform policy action, in a sample of OECD countries. Our analysis is conducted at the national level because Porter’s original hypothesis focused on competition between nations considering the effects of environmental regulations (Ambec etal. 2013). Most of the existing empirical research tests separately either the impacts of environmental regulations on green growth productivity or the growth productivity impacts of EPL. However, as men- tioned above, strong inclusive green growth is the sine qua none of the improved welfare and living standards, which are determined by green and social policies. To fill this gap, we conduct an empirical analysis of the effect of environmental policy stringency (OECD’s EPS) and employment protection legislation (OECD’s EPL) on IGGTFP. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it can enrich the theoreti- cal research of inclusive green growth, clarify the impact mechanism of EPS and EPL, and provide reliable experience support for the construction of inclusive green growth theory. Second, in the context of methodology, our contribution relies on applying the SBM-DDF model, incorporating GHG emissions as undesirable out- put and the human development index (HDI) as a desirable output reflecting social welfare, to measure the Global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index of OECD countries instead of traditional TFP. Third, from an empirical research perspective, this study can provide support or challenge to Porter’s hypothesis and the inefficient retention argument, policy suggestions on how to better conceive environmental and employment protection regulations to improve IGG levels. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section2 is devoted to the presenta- tion of the literature review regarding the impact of environmental and employment regulations on economic/inclusive/green growth. Section3 presents the methodol- ogy, data sources and variables, including models such as the GMLPI based on the SBM-DDF model and the econometric model. Then, Sect.4 displays and discusses the empirical results. The final section concludes the paper and provides policy implications. 2 Literature review One particular focus of attention has been the issue of whether environmental regulations influence the patterns of green growth, since the seminal articles of Porter (1991) and Porter and van der Linde (1995) suggesting that “properly designed environmental regulation (economic instruments like green taxes and tradeable permits) can trigger innovation that may partially or more than fully offset the costs of complying with them” (Porter and van der Linde 1995, p. 98), thereby improving a country’s productivity. The argument of this “Porter hypoth- esis” (PH) is that strict environmental regulations if they are well-designed and implemented correctly, can induce innovation that may offset the short-term pri- vate costs of such regulations and ultimately may lead to a competitive advantage in the country level (Lahouel etal. 2020; Managi 2004; Managi etal. 2005). Both 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies regulations and strict environmental standards lead to win–win situations where social welfare and private net benefits of firms (i.e., competitiveness and resource productivity) can be increased (Porter and van der Linde 1995). However, envi- ronmental regulations a la Porter have received skeptical responses from econo- mists who have objected to the idea of a “free lunch”. Indeed, conventional eco- nomic wisdom holds that strict environmental regulations imply private costs for prevention and remediation. Therefore, adding new constraints to the production possibility set will have a negative effect on a country’s competitiveness (Kumar and Managi 2009; Palmer etal. 1995). According to Brännlund and Lundgren (2009), environmental regulations not only impose costs and negatively affect competitiveness, but also may have negative social economic impacts such as lower employment and welfare. Because welfare depends on income distribution and employment, these regulations may create jobs for some types of workers in some areas and eliminate jobs for other types of workers in other areas (World Bank 2012). In this regard, Foa (2009) argues that environmental regulations have distributive effects such as leading to improved gender equality, with many economic and social benefits. Accordingly, the present study not only considers the effect of environmental regulations on GG but also accounts for its heterog- enous effects on different social groups and regions, which means that environ- mental regulations may affect IGG. On the other hand, countries aiming for an inclusive and green strategic transi- tion need to design coherent policies to anticipate how market changes will affect employment and inclusive growth. The primary motivation for many of these poli- cies is to encourage producers to change their behavior to increase employment and distribute it fairly. Governments need to design and maintain a business-friendly environment by eliminating market distortions to create employment opportunities and promote higher IGG productivity (Ali and Zhuang 2007). Over the past few decades, employment protection legislation (EPL) has been at the center of policy concerns in OECD countries. The attention has focused on the impact of EPL on firms’ incentives to invest in innovation and growth that improve productivity. So, how does EPL affect productivity? To date, several theoretical and empirical studies have viewed EPL—generally designed to protect employment and increase job sta- bility by reducing job destruction—as a cost borne by firms, and the focus has been on employment and labor market flows (Bassanini etal. 2009; Damiani etal. 2016). Such reforms are usually justified by the economic argument of inefficient retention (Bierhanzl 2005). According to this argument, high firing costs should be reduced because they are likely to prevent firms from shedding underperforming employees. At the same time, low worker turnover—induced by high EPL—would undermine the ability of a labor market to match the right workers to the right jobs efficiently. Equilibrium models of the labor market show that strict employment protection implies a slower speed of adjustment towards equilibrium. For example, Cazes (2013) and Noelke (2016) reach similar conclusions about the negative impact of EPL on occupational mobility. Therefore, average productivity declines and the eco- nomic system becomes less competitive. In turn, low competitiveness weakens eco- nomic growth, employment and, ultimately, welfare (Berton etal. 2017; Garibaldi and Violente 2005). Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 However, this perspective only considers the way in which EPL affects the allo- cation of given skills to jobs but neglects the fact that skill development is also impacted by EPL. Belot etal (2007) propose a framework in which, by providing additional job security, employment protection can increase workers’ incentives to invest in match-specific human capital by increasing the probability of match sur- vival, thereby improving productivity growth. However, there is a trade-off between the positive effects of EPL and the costs raised upon separations (Bassanini etal. 2009). Therefore, Belot etal. (2007) show that the relationship between EPL and productivity is well described by an inverted U-shaped curve: a strictly positive optimal level of EPL can be identified, so that increasing employment protection does indeed improve welfare. The optimal level of EPL depends on other labor market institutions that regulate wage rigidity and redistribution patterns (Damiani etal. 2016). In terms of empirical evidence, few studies have examined the produc- tivity impacts of EPL in cross-country analyses, and the results are inconclusive. For example, Bassanini etal. (2009) find that the regulations governing employee dismissals in OECD countries have a depressive effect on productivity growth in industries where layoff restrictions are more likely to be binding. Bartelsman etal. (2013) find that high-risk innovative industries are smaller in countries with strict EPL, which helps explain the productivity slowdown in Europe relative to the United States since the mid-1990s. In the same vein, Berton etal. (2017) exam- ine the effects of the “Fornero Law”, introduced as part of Italy’s 2012 austerity reforms and relaxing employment protection requirements, show that reducing the EPL promotes labor reallocation, increases good matches, and boosts productivity. Conversely, Nickell and Layard (1999) and Koeniger (2005) find a positive relation- ship between EPL stringency and TFP growth and R&D intensity, respectively, for samples of OECD countries. This is because productivity improvements depend on worker cooperation and investment in on-the-job training, which in turn are helped by layoff costs. Based on a study of 17 OECD countries and three periods, from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, Belot etal. (2007) show that the relationship between EPL and productivity is nonlinear. 3 Methods anddata 3.1 Inclusive green growth index The combination of the data envelopment analysis method with the Malmquist- Luenberger productivity index (MLPI) has received increased scholarly attention for the measurement of either green growth or inclusive growth. DEA maximizes economic outputs and minimizes undesirable outputs (e.g., wastewater, greenhouse gases, etc.), thus laying the foundation for an inclusive green growth metric. Spe- cifically, the MLPI based on DDF (Chung etal. 1997), considering both desirable and undesirable outputs, makes DEA one of the most important methods for IGG estimation (Jiang etal. 2021; Song etal. 2020). However, when linear programming is implemented, MLPI can have infeasibility problems due to inter-period computa- tion, making the estimates unstable or inconsistent with actual production activities 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies (Xue and Harker 2002). Two major developments in DEA have been advanced to overcome these problems. First, Tone (2001) extends traditional DEA models and proposes a non-radial slacks-based measure (SBM) model that accounts for ineffi- ciencies associated with an excess inputs and shortfalls of outputs. Then, Fukuy- ama and Weber (2009) and Färe and Grosskopf (2010) combine SBM and DDF to obtain a new SBM-DDF model, which solves the problem of efficiency overestima- tion. Second, based on the concept of global production possibility set, Pastor and Lovell (2005) develop the global Malmquist index. Oh (2010) further extended their work and propose the global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (GMLPI) by incorporating undesirable outputs. Therefore, GMLPI is circular and free from infeasibility problems (Oh 2010). Currently, most researchers opt to use the non- radial direction distance function to measure total factor productivity, which allows for the resolution of the measurement error problem by introducing input and out- put slack variables (Jiang etal. 2021). Based on the developments in DEA models presented above, this paper adopts the GMLPI based on SBM-DDF to measure the inclusive green growth total factor productivity index (IGGTFP) in OECD countries. 3.1.1 Slacks-based measure directional distance function (SBM-DDF) Each OECD country consists of a decision-making unit (DMU) and is denoted DMUk ( k=1, 2, …,K ). The production technology for each DMU pro- duces N desirable outputs: y = ( y 1 ,…,y N) ∈R + N and I undesirable outputs: b = ( b 1 ,…,b I) ∈R + I , by using M inputs: x = ( x 1 ,…,x M) ∈R + M . The expression ( x t k ,y t k ,b t k) reflects the set of inputs and outputs of a country k in period t . So, the contemporaneous production possibility set (PPS), of the current period is: where zt k denotes the weight of each cross-section observation, and the constraints. ∑K k=1 zt k =1, zt k ≥0, indicatesthatthePPSexhibitsvariabler etur nstoscale . However, the contemporaneous Pt(xt) often yields to a counterintuitive long-term technologi- cal regress (Xue and Harker 2002). Therefore, Oh (2010) proposes to replace Pt(xt) with a global PPS, PG(x) , where PG (x)=P 1( x 1) ∪P 2( x 2) ∪⋯∪P T( x T) , used for building a single global production frontier emphasizing the consistency and com- parability of efficiency. PG(x) can be expressed as follows: (1) P t ( xt ) = {( yt,bt ) ∶ T ∑ t=1 K ∑ k=1 zt kyt kn ≥yt kn,∀n; T ∑ t=1 K ∑ k=1 zt kbt ki =bt ki,∀i; K ∑ k=1 zt k=1, zt k≥0, ∀k } (2) P G(x)= {( yt,bt ) : T ∑ t=1 K ∑ k=1 zt kyt kn ≥ yt kn,∀n; T ∑ t=1 K ∑ k=1 zt kbt ki =bt ki,∀i; T ∑ t=1 K ∑ k=1 zt kxt km ≤ xt km,∀m; K ∑ k=1 zt k=1, zt k ≥ 0, ∀k } Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 Although DDF has many favorable features, Fukuyama and Weber (2009) argue that it does not account for slacks in the constraints when estimated by applying DEA, which are important sources of inefficiency. Hence, we follow Fukuyama and Weber (2009) and define the global SBM-DDF that covers undesirable outputs as: where x t,k ′ ,y t,k ′ andb t,k ′ are the vectors of inputs and outputs of a country k in period t . The directional vectors gx ,gyandgb indicate the decrease of inputs, increase of desir- able outputs, and the decrease of undesirable outputs, respectively. Sx m ,S y n andS b i rep- resent the slacks in inputs, desirable outputs and undesirable outputs, respectively. 3.1.2 Global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (GMLPI) Although the GMLPI can correct the defect of no solution when linear program- ming the MLPI, a single GMLPI cannot solve the radial angle problem. Therefore, with reference to Oh (2010), this paper adopts the GMLPI based on SBM-DDF as follows: In this study, we measure the inclusive green growth index by calculating the change in the GMLPI from period t to t+1 . GMLPI >(<)1 corresponds to produc- tivity increase (decrease). GMPLI =1 indicates that productivity tends to be stable. Further, GMLPI can also be derived as the technical efficiency change ( GEC t+1 t) and the technological change ( GTC t+1 t) as follows: (3) DG v ( xt,k′ ,yt,k′ ,bt,k′ ,gx,gy,gb ) = max 1 N ∑ M m=1 S x m gx m +1 M+I [∑ n n=1 S y n gy n + ∑ I i=1 S b i gb i ] 2 s .t. ⎧ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎨ ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ ⎩ ∑ T t=1 ∑ K k=1zt kxt km +Sx m=xt k′m,∀m ; ∑T t=1∑K k=1zt kyt kn −Sy n=yt k′n,∀n; ∑T t=1∑K k=1zt kbt ki +Sb i=bt k′i,∀i; ∑ K k=1zt k=1, zt k≥0, ∀k Sx m≥0, ∀m;Sb i≥0, ∀i;Sy n≥0, ∀n (4) GMLPI t+1 t= 1+ DG V(xt,yt,bt,gx,gy,gb) 1+ DG V (xt+1,yt+1,bt+1,gx,gy,gb ) GMLPIt+1 t = GEC t+1 t ×GTC t+1 t, GEC t+1 t= 1+ Dt V(xt,yt,bt,gx,gy,gb) 1+ Dt+1 V (xt+1,yt+1,bt+1,gx,gy,gb ) 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies GECt+1 t corresponds to the efficiency change of inclusive green growth that meas- ures the catch-up effect, capturing the degree a DMU moves closer to the contempo- raneous frontier over time. GTCt+1 t corresponds to the technological change of inclu- sive green growth that captures whether the contemporaneous frontier moves closer to the global frontier over time. When GECt+1 t and GTCt+1 t are greater than 1 (less than 1), they represent an increase (decrease) in technical efficiency and technologi- cal progress, respectively. 3.2 Data andvariables The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of the environmental policy stringency (EPS) and the employment protection legislation (EPL) on inclusive green growth (IGG) on a balanced panel of 26 OECD countries over the period 1990–2012. Data on inputs and outputs for the calculation of the GMLPI are obtained from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank and the Pen World Tables9.0 databases. The output corresponding to the Human Development Index (HDI) is collected from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Data on EPS, EPL, and control variables in the econometric model are sourced from OECD.Stat database. We follow the previous literature for the choice of these vari- ables (e.g., Lahouel etal. 2021; Jiang etal. 2021; Wang etal. 2019; Xie etal. 2017). Three inputs are included corresponding to the capital stock, labor, and energy con- sumption. The capital stock represents the gross capital formation in each country and is expressed in US dollars (millions) at constant 2011 national prices. Labor is the labor force measured by the number of employed (millions) workers at the year’s end. Energy consumption is expressed in Terajoules (thousands). Two desirable out- puts are considered in our analysis. The first is the economic growth proxied by the GDP, which is expressed in US dollars (billions) at constant 2011 national prices. The second corresponds to the social output, which expresses inclusive growth. It is measured by the HDI. The undesirable output is measured by greenhouse gas emis- sions and expressed in tones of CO2 equivalent (thousands). For the determinants of IGG, our main explanatory variables are EPS and EPL. EPS index is a composite indicator of environmental policy stringency, which is developed by the OECD for the 27 OECD countries for the period 1990–2012 and is publicly available in OECD.Stat (see Albrizio etal. 2017; Botta and Kozluk 2014). The EPS index aggregates both market-based and non-market-based indicators, which are given equal weights. It is calculated using the following formula: (5) GTC t+1 t= [ 1+ DG V(xt,yt,bt,gx,gy,gb) ] ∕ [ 1+ Dt V(xt,yt,bt,gx,gy,gb) ] 1+ DG V (xt+1,yt+1,bt+1,gx,gy,gb)∕1+ Dt+1 V (xt+1,yt+1,bt+1,gx,gy,gb ) (6) EPS index =(0.5 ∗market −based instruments) +(0.5 ∗non −market −based instruments) Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 The EPL index, which is developed by the OECD and available OECD.Stat, is an indicator of employment protection legislation, which measures the stringency of regulations on layoffs and the use of temporary contracts. For each year, the EPL index refers to the regulations in force on January 1. Based upon a review of the literature,1 we retain four variables as being of particular importance in explaining inclusive green growth. Government budget allocation for R&D (GBRD) reflects the investment in research and development activities, which is supposed to raise the technical level of production activities, and thus increase IGG to a higher level. Data on a patent for environmental-related technologies (PERT) are used as a measure of technological innovation (i.e., an indicator of the innovative performance of an economy) as they focus on the outputs and impacts of the inventive process. Foreign direct investment (FDI) can play a significant role in the convergence of inclusive and green technical efficiency in various OECD countries as it can bring a technol- ogy spillover from the endogenous advantages of foreign firms. Renewable energy consumption (REC) denotes clean energy usage and is expected to improve IGG by helping to decrease the quantity of negative environmental inputs. The required input and output variables and their measures are described in Table1. 3.3 Econometric framework The estimation strategy for this study is a two-step system generalized method of moments (Sys-GMM). The current values of our dependent variable, inclusive green growth (IGG), are likely to depend on their one-year lagged values, which can be accounted for using dynamic panel data estimation techniques. Several motivations guide us towards the choice of an endogeneity-robust two-step Sys-GMM estimator. First, the number of countries (N = 26) is greater than the number of years (T = 23) to control for dynamic panel bias (Roodman 2009a). Second, for small samples the Sys-GMM estimator, developed by Blundell and Bond (1998), appears to be more suitable than the difference GMM (Diff-GMM) estimator suggested by Arellano and Bond (1991) who might produce biased estimates. Third, given that the data structure is a panel, in the adopted Sys-GMM method, cross-country variations are considered in the estimations. Fourth, endogeneity is addressed by the estimation process from two main levels. On the one hand, the concern about simultaneity or reverse causality is considered by means of an instrumentation process. On the other hand, time-invariant variables are also tackled for the unobserved heterogene- ity. In the present study, we adopt the Roodman (2009a, 2009b) extension of Arel- lano and Bover (1995), which has been considered to restrict over-identification and reduce the proliferation of instruments (Love and Zicchino 2006). Hence, the chosen specification is a two-step Sys-GMM with forward orthogonal deviations instead of differencing. We prefer the two-step to the one-step procedure because the latter is homoscedasticity-consistent while the former controls for heteroscedasticity. 1 See, for example, Ambec etal. (2013), Cecere and Corrocher (2016), Johnstone etal. (2012), Maji (2019), Song etal. (2019), Xie etal. (2017), Zhu and Ye (2018) are some studies that include a sample of OECD and non-OECD economies. 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Table 1 Variable definition PWT 9.0, WDI, UNDP indicate Penn World Trade version 9.0, World Development Indicators, United Nations Development Programme, respectively Variables Sign Description Source Unit Capital stock K Input PWT 9.0 Us dollars, million Labor force L Input WDI Employed worker, million Energy consumption EC Input WDI Terajoules, thousand Gross domestic product GDP Output (desirable) WDI Us dollars, billion Human development index HDI Output (desirable) UNDP Greenhouse gas GHG Output (undesirable) OECD.Stat Tone of CO2 equivalent, thousand EPS index EPS Explanatory 1 OECD.Stat – Employment protection legislation EPL Explanatory 2 OECD.Stat – Government budget allocation for R&D GBRD Control WDI Us dollars, million Patent for environmental-related Technologies PERT Control WDI Number of patents Foreign direct investment FDI Control WDI % of GDP Renewable energy consumption REC Control WDI % Of total final energy consumption Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 The following equation summarizes the two-step Sys-GMM estimation procedure for the full model form: where IGG is the dependent variable standing for inclusive green growth. Coun- try and time are denoted by the subscripts i and t, respectively. EPS and EPL are the independent variables and stand for the environmental policy stringency and employment protection legislation, respectively. As IGG requires changes in tech- nology and/or production processes which may take some time to occur, changes in the severity of environmental and employment regulations adopted today will affect countries’ IGG a few years later (Albrizio etal. 2017; Lanoie etal. 2008). Therefore, we allow a one-year lag in the variables of regulation stringency. The matrix Xit con- tains a set of control variables (GBRD, PERT, FDI, and REC) that are 1-year lagged to avoid two-way causation with IGG (Rubashkina etal. 2015). Individual (country) effects are captured by 𝜇i and 𝜀i,t stands for the disturbance term. 𝜏 represents the coefficient of auto-regression (lag order). We estimate a first model (model 1) by considering variables in level ( 𝜏=0 ) and a second model (model 2) by considering a one-year lag ( 𝜏=1 ). In addition, we introduce a cross-term of the environmental policy stringency and the employment protection legislation ( EPS i,t−𝜏 ×EPL i,t−𝜏) to explore whether there is a substitution effect or a complementary effect between these two types of regulations. If the estimated coefficient of the interaction effects is positive, the two types of regulations have a complementary relationship. How- ever, if it is negative, EPS and EPL are mutual substitutes. As mentioned above, we use the two-step Sys-GMM as our primary estima- tion technique to alleviate the concerns about dynamic panel bias and endogene- ity. Sys-GMM technique involves a system of equations in differences and in lev- els which allow us to treat all the explanatory variables in Eq.(7) as endogenous. For each model, and to apply the procedure recommended by the GMM method (i.e., identification and exclusion restrictions), a certain number of diagnostic tests were considered. First, we verify the absence of autocorrelation with the second- order Arellano and Bond autocorrelation test AR (2) in difference.2 Second, to con- firm the absence of correlation between the error term and the set of instrumental variables we employ the Sargan or Hansen overidentifying restrictions (OIR) tests.3 The validity of the Sys-GMM estimator depends on whether the lagged instrumen- tal variables are exogenous (Roodman 2009a, b). For this reason, we empirically (7) IGG it =𝛼 0 +𝛼 1 IGG i,t−1 +𝛼 2 EPS i,t−𝜏 +𝛼 3 EPL i,t−𝜏 +𝛼 4 (EPS i,t−𝜏 ×EPL i,t−𝜏 ) +𝛼5Xi,t−𝜏+𝜇i+𝜀i,t 2 The null hypothesis of the second-order Arellano and Bond autocorrelation test (AR (2)) in difference for the absence of autocorrelation in the residuals should not be rejected for a good specification of the model. 3 It is relevant to highlight that the discussed criterion is broadly consistent with a standard instrumen- tal variable (IV) approach, in which failure to reject to null hypothesis of the Hansen-Sargan Overi- dentifying Restrictions (OIR) test is a sign that the instrumental variables affect the outcome variables exclusively through the adopted mechanisms. The OIR tests should not be significant because their null hypotheses are the positions that instruments are valid or not correlated with the error terms. 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies check the validity of the Sys-GMM estimator through the use of the Hansen-J test of over-identification and difference-in-Hansen (DHT) test of exogeneity of instru- ment subsets. Furthermore, the current study considers all explanatory variables as predetermined variables, whereas the time-invariant variables (i.e., year dummies variables) are strictly exogenous. Hence, the procedure for treating ivstyle (years) is ‘iv (years, eq(diff))’ whereas the gmmstyle is employed for predetermined variables. Fischer test for the joint validity of estimated coefficients is also used.4 4 Empirical results anddiscussion To calculate the IGG index and its sources by OECD countries over the period 1990–2012,5 we run the model presented in Eqs.(4) and (5) using the GMLPI with the SBM-DDF model. Table2 reports the geometric average6 values of the GMLPI and its decompositions: efficiency change and technological change. The GMLPI increased on average by 1% from 1990 to 2012, which denotes an improvement in inclusive green growth. All OECD countries showed an increase in their inclusive green growth except Austria, Greece, Portugal and Turkey that recorded a decline by 0.2%, 0.2%, 0.4%, and 0.4%, respectively. This improvement is the result of a combination of two small positive complementary effects: an increase in efficiency change of 0.3% and increase in technological change of 0.7%. The discussion of the results from the econometric estimations begins with sum- mary statistics and correlation analysis of the regression variables as presented in Tables5 and Figs.1 and 2 in the appendix. The results show the absence of any correlation that exceeds 0.723 between the explanatory variables except for the one between EPS and EPS×EPL, which is a completely expected result, not posing any problems in our estimations, since the interaction term includes the EPS variable. None of the correlation coefficients between the independent variables is greater than the 0.80 threshold. Thus, multicollinearity is unlikely to be an issue among these variables. The regression results are presented in Tables3 and 4 and proceed in two stages.7 As reported in Table3 (the same reasoning was also applied to Table4), the Hansen OIR test yields the p-value of 0.109 (model 1) and 0.910 (model 2) confirming that the instruments (as a group) used in the Sys-GMM model are valid. We also follow Roodman (2009a) and apply the difference-in-Hansen tests 4 Given the adopted GMM methodology, the assumption of exclusion restrictions is confirmed if the DHT on the exogeneity of instruments is not valid. A rejection of the null hypothesis proves that the adopted strictly exogenous variables are not valid. 5 Tables6, 7, and 8 of the appendix show the average of inclusive green growth productivity (GMLPI), efficiency change (EC) and technological change (TC) calculated using Eqs.4 and 5. 6 Since MPI is multiplicative, the use of geometric averages ensures that the multiplicative decomposi- tion shown by Eq.(5) holds exactly (Kerstens etal. 2019). 7 For comparison purposes, Tables3 and 4 are supplemented with ordinary least squares (OLS) regres- sion results to show how their estimated coefficients differ from GMM estimators, which are known to be more robust (Lahouel etal. 2019). Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 Table 2 Inclusive green growth and its sources Country GMLPI Efficiency change Technical change Country GMLPI Efficiency change Technical change Australia 1.022 0.989 1.034 Japan 1.000 1.000 1.000 Austria 0.998 0.996 1.003 Korea 1.025 1.015 1.009 Belgium 1.005 0.995 1.010 Netherlands 1.023 1.008 1.015 Canada 1.012 0.999 1.013 Norway 1.004 1.000 1.004 Czech Republic 1.012 1.011 1.002 Poland 1.022 1.031 0.992 Denmark 1.019 1.015 1.004 Portugal 0.994 0.972 1.022 Finland 1.010 1.010 1.000 Slovak Republic 1.000 1.000 1.000 France 1.016 1.005 1.012 Spain 1.009 0.996 1.012 Germany 1.017 1.010 1.008 Sweden 1.013 1.008 1.005 Greece 0.998 0.994 1.004 Switzerland 1.012 1.000 1.012 Hungary 1.009 1.009 1.000 Turkey 0.994 1.000 0.994 Ireland 1.000 1.000 1.000 United Kingdom 1.025 1.023 1.002 Italy 1.006 0.994 1.012 United States 1.018 1.000 1.018 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies of exogeneity to the subsets of Sys-GMM-type instruments and standard instru- ments. The tests are under the null hypothesis of joint validity of a specific instru- ment subset. Specifically, we test the validity of several subsets of Sys-GMM-type instruments including: (i) GMM-type instruments (as a group) for the equation in levels; (ii) GMM instruments for lagged dependent variable for the equation in differences; (iii) GMM-type instruments for lagged dependent variable for the equation in levels. The subset of standard instruments for the equation in levels is also tested for their validity. In the first instance, Table3 presents the results of the reduced-form model in which we examine the pure effects of EPS, EPL, and their interaction on IGG. The estimated coefficients of model 1 and model 2 consider variables in level ( 𝜏=0 ) and variables with a one-year lag ( 𝜏=1 ), respectively. The coefficient of lagged inclusive green growth is significantly positive for both models, indicating that IGG of the current period is influenced by the level of IGG recorded in the previous period. Our results are homogenous across the two models (i.e., current period and one-year lagged environmental and employment regulations) and reveal that EPS, EPL, and their interaction have significant positive effects on IGG. This implies that more stringent environmental and employment regulations stimulate inclusive and green productivity growth in OECD countries. First, our results are in line with the “Porter hypothesis” because when environmental regulation stringency increases, IGG improves. That is, when contemporaneous EPS increases by 1%, IGG improves by 0.190% and when the one-year lag effect of EPS is considered, IGG improves Table 3 Reduced form model (without control variables) ***, **, * indicate significance at 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively. The number in the parentheses is the p-value. IGG, EPS and EPL denote inclusive green growth, environmental policy stringency, employ- ment protection legislation. 𝜏 represents the coefficient of auto-regression (lag order) Dependent variable: IGG Estimation method Two step Sys-GMM OLS Models Model 1 ( 𝜏=0) Model 2 ( 𝜏=1) Model 1 ( 𝜏=0) Model 2 ( 𝜏=1) Constant 1.447*** (0.000) 1.670*** (0.000) 1.022*** (0.000) 1.118*** (0.000) IGGt−1 0.421*** (0.000) 0.445*** (0.000) 0.285** (0.04) 0.235* (0.07) EPSt−𝜏 0.190** (0.037) 0.111** (0.012) 0.101* (0.09) 0.851 (0.125) EPLt−𝜏 0.145*** (0.007) 0.122** (0.014) 0.095* (0.07) 0.091 (0.125) EPSt−𝜏×EPLt−𝜏 0.059** (0.025) 0.012** (0.013) 0.014** (0.012) 0.012** (0.011) Observations 542 540 544 542 Fisher statistic 14.80*** 6.64*** Year dummies Yes Yes No No Nb. of instruments 16 18 - - Countries/groups 26 26 26 26 AR (1) (p-value) (0.092) (0.085) AR (2) (p-value) (0.117) (0.197) Hansen OIR (p-value) (0.109) (0.910) Sargan OIR (p-value) (0.890) (0.119) Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 by 0.111%. Similarly, Wang etal. (2019) find that both current and lagged envi- ronmental regulations are positively correlated with green productivity growth in OECD countries. Our results are consistent with the idea that strict environmental regulation creates more “innovation offset effects” than “compliance costs”. There- fore, as marginal pollution control expenditures tend to decrease over time, firms place more emphasis on improving production processes and using cleaner produc- tion technologies. Second, we find that stringent labor market regulations are positively associ- ated with IGG, which is in line with the existing evidence in the OECD countries that increasing employment protection does indeed improve welfare. The estimated coefficient of the contemporaneous and the 1-year lagged EPL variable are positive (0.145 and 0.122) and significant at 1% and 10% levels, respectively. Our results are consistent with those of Nickell and Layard (1999) and Koeniger (2005) who find that strict EPL positively impacts productivity growth. Hence, employment protection could help stimulating workers’ investment in firm-specific skills and determining the mix of these skills. We argue that the positive welfare effects of Table 4 Model with added control variables 𝜏 Represents the coefficient of auto-regression (lag order) IGG inclusive green growth, EPS environmental policy stringency, EPL employment protection legisla- tion, GDRD patent for environment-related technologies (PERT), PERT patent for environment-related technologies (PERT), FDI foreign direct investment (FDI), REC renewable energy consumption (REC) ***, **, *Indicate significance at 1%, 5% and 10%, respectively. The number in the parentheses is the p-value Dependent variable: IGG Estimation method Two step Sys-GMM OLS Models Model 1 ( 𝜏=0) Model 2 ( 𝜏=1) Model 1 ( 𝜏=0) Model 2 ( 𝜏=1) Constant 1.326*** (0.000) 1.547*** (0.000) 1.061*** (0.000) 1.142*** (0.000) IGGt−𝜏 0.235*** (0.000) 0.343*** (0.000) 0.131** (0.056) 0.142* (0.091) EPSt−𝜏 0.184*** (0.003) 0.166*** (0.002) 0.104* (0.078) 0.106* (0.091) EPLt−𝜏 0.112** (0.021) 0.138** (0.023) 0.102** (0.041) 0.118** (0.013) EPSt−𝜏×EPLt−𝜏 0.041** (0.023) 0.023** (0.012) 0.011* (0.093) 0.123** (0.112) GBRDt−𝜏 0.503** (0.031) 0.341** (0.012) 0.103** (0.011) 0.147** (0.011) PETt−𝜏 −0.218 (0.444) −0.051 (0.124) −0.117 (0.141) −0.151 (0.321) FDIt−𝜏 0.08** (0.029) 0.03** (0.012) 0.08** (0.029) 0.03** (0.012) RECt−𝜏 -0.004 (0.244) −0.07 (0.113) −0.012 (0.247) −0.071 (0.103) Observations 477 470 478 471 Year dummies Yes Yes No No Nb. of instruments 16 18 – – Countries/groups 26 26 26 26 Fisher statistic 11.43*** 7.09*** AR (1) (p-value) (0.049) (0.092) AR (2) (p-value) (0.112) (0.155) Hansen OIR(p-value) (0.918) (0.822) Sargan OIR (p-value) (0.118) (0.261) 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies employment protection are higher than the costs of workers’ reallocation which may hinder productivity growth. Third, the estimated coefficients cross-term are positive and significant no matter whether we include contemporaneous or one-year lagged effect, meaning that environmental regulation and employment protection have com- plementary effects on promoting IGG. This result confirms previous evidence that environmental and inclusion outcomes are not simply a function of economic devel- opment, but also a consequence of public policy choices such as environmental and employment regulatory regimes (e.g., Li etal. 2019; Wang and Shen 2016). In the second instance, Table4 reports the results from the estimation of the full model with the introduction of control variables that may influence the impacts of environmental and employment regulation on IGG. Our results remain qualitatively similar to those of our main inferences, after controlling for additional explana- tory variables. That is, EPS, EPL and their interaction have positive and significant effects on IGG. For the control variables, only GBRD and FDI exert a significant positive effect on IGG no matter whether contemporaneous or 1-year lagged effects are considered. Because the inclusive green growth index has not yet been widely discussed with respect to the impacts of environmental and employment regulations, our results could not be compared to studies that have examined these effects on green productivity growth. However, we can make a connection with previous stud- ies such as those of Albrizio etal. (2017) and Johnstone etal. (2012) who find that OECD countries with higher R&D expenditures are likely to have higher productiv- ity growth. Moreover, our findings are in line with the study of Zhu and Ye (2018) who find that FDI can promote inclusive green growth. Regarding PET and REC, these two variables are both negatively correlated with IGG but do not pass the sig- nificance test. 5 Conclusion andpolicy implication One of the major challenges of the twenty-first century is to design a generic soci- etal and economic paradigm capable of articulating economic viability, social inclu- sion, and environmental sustainability. Inclusive green growth is, therefore, a new paradigm for public authorities who have a central role to play in terms of collective regulation for sustainable and shared prosperity. Over the past two decades, OECD governments have implemented a wide variety of environmental and employment regulations to enhance environmental quality, social welfare, and productivity. Therefore, the current strengthening of environmental regulation and employment protection legislation is likely to affect not only environmental outcomes and social welfare but also economic performance. In this paper, we have extended in two different directions the existing empirical literature related to the discussion of the Porter Hypothesis. First, we use inclusive green growth, a new concept that encompasses the three dimensions of sustainable development, as a proxy for country competitiveness, allowing the assessment of how to make growth greener and more inclusive. Therefore, we apply an extended GMLPI based on the SBM-DDF model incorporating GHG emissions as an unde- sirable environmental output and HDI and GDP as desirable outputs reflecting the Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 social and economic dimensions of inclusive green growth, respectively. Second, while previous studies only examine the impacts of environmental regulations on green productivity growth, we additionally examine the effects of employment pro- tection legislation and its interaction with environmental regulations on inclusive green growth. This is an important feature of this study. Dynamic panel regression analysis shows that current and lagged OECD stringent environmental and employment policies (i.e., EPS and EPL) and their interaction significantly promote inclusive green growth. Thus, our results support the strong version of Porter Hypothesis that stringent environmental regulations improve coun- tries’ competitiveness. However, we find no evidence of the inefficient retention hypotheses as our results indicate that the stringency of employment protection does not impede countries’ competitiveness. Based on the above analysis, we draw some policy implications. First, the inclu- sive green growth index remains very modest, on average, for OECD countries. It reflects low average technological change and efficiency gains. OECD countries, therefore, need to devote more effort to protecting the ecological environment by avoiding the “pollution first, treatment later” path, raising labor incomes, and reforming the income distribution system. OECD countries are therefore invited to better manage the structure of factor allocation and to increase the financial resources allocated to investment in technological innovation. Second, because inclusive green growth can be fostered by well-designed environmental and employ- ment regulations, mitigating the significant national heterogeneities in these regula- tions is essential if OECD countries are to enhance inclusive green growth through collective and convergent policies. Although we have reached important conclusions, there are inevitably several limitations. First, we did not study the nonlinear impacts of environmental and employment policies on inclusive green growth. Second, we have not considered the heterogeneous effects of different types of environmental regulation, such as market- based and command-and-control policies, on inclusive green growth. Third, it would be appropriate to use subgroups or homogeneous groups of OECD countries based on their economic trajectories and environmental strategies to better reflect country heterogeneity. Future research can move in these directions. Appendix See Figs.1, 2 and Tables5, 6, 7, 8. 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Table 5 Summary statistics This table shows summary statistics for all regressors and dependent variables for the period 1990–2012. It reports the mean, standard deviation (SD), first quantile (Q1: 0.25), median, third quantile (Q3: 0.75), minimum (Min) and maximum (Max). IGG, EPS, EPL, GDRD, PERT, FDI, and REC, denote inclusive green growth, environmental policy stringency, employment protection legislation, government budget allocation for R&D (GBRD), patent for environment-related technologies (PERT), foreign direct invest- ment (FDI), and renewable energy consumption (REC), respectively. Mean SD Q1 Median Q3 Min Max N IGG 1.010 0.041 0.994 1.009 1.028 0.628 1.325 572 EPS 1.740 0.897 0.994 1.583 2.404 0.208 4.133 598 EPL 2.206 0.825 1.702 2.333 2.678 0.256 4.833 592 GBRD 3.572 0.612 3.168 3.452 4.052 2.299 5.220 529 PERT 5.391 1.823 4.300 5.330 6.314 −1.108 9.577 596 FDI 3.926 7.067 0.846 1.954 4.286 −15.989 87.442 578 REC 13.214 13.435 4.207 8.021 20.555 0.441 61.378 598 Fig. 1 Correlation with bivariate relationships. This figure shows the correlation with bivariate rela- tionships between the variables used in the empirical model for the period 1990–2012. IGG, EPS, EPL, GDRD, PERT, FDI, and REC, denote inclusive green growth, environmental policy stringency, employ- ment protection legislation, government budget allocation for R&D (GBRD), patent for environment- related technologies (PERT), foreign direct investment (FDI), and renewable energy consumption (REC), respectively Fig. 2 Network correlations between the variables in the model. This figure shows the network corre- lations between the variables used in the empirical model for the period 1990–2012. IGG, EPS, EPL, GDRD, PERT, FDI, and REC, denote inclusive green growth, environmental policy stringency, employ- ment protection legislation, government budget allocation for R&D (GBRD), patent for environment- related technologies (PERT), foreign direct investment (FDI), and renewable energy consumption (REC), respectively Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 Table 6 Averaged inclusive green growth: 1990–2012 1990–1991 1991–1992 1992–1993 1993–1994 1994–1995 1995–1996 1996–1997 1997–1998 1998–1999 1999–2000 2000–2001 Australia 1.003 1.050 1.037 1.030 1.026 1.028 1.037 1.046 1.029 1.000 1.032 Austria 0.970 1.031 0.990 1.013 0.981 0.967 1.012 1.004 1.012 1.009 0.969 Belgium 0.984 1.003 0.994 1.000 0.998 0.980 1.024 0.989 1.016 1.003 0.983 Canada 0.968 0.997 1.017 1.030 1.013 0.998 1.029 1.035 1.034 1.034 1.017 Czech Republic 0.967 1.001 1.005 1.035 1.030 1.010 0.999 1.015 1.034 1.007 1.007 Denmark 0.951 1.032 0.982 1.013 1.011 0.966 1.042 1.019 1.032 1.033 0.998 Finland 0.996 1.015 1.013 1.004 1.038 0.992 1.016 1.024 1.015 1.030 0.988 France 0.977 1.020 1.002 1.035 1.013 0.991 1.032 1.021 1.037 1.034 1.003 Germany 1.073 1.034 0.980 1.032 1.007 0.984 1.028 1.022 1.026 1.032 1.009 Greece 1.005 0.993 0.981 0.994 0.988 0.976 1.003 0.980 1.014 1.002 1.001 Hungary 0.961 1.067 1.007 1.022 1.011 0.974 1.027 1.010 0.994 1.027 0.988 Ireland 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.989 1.012 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.974 Italy 0.999 1.011 0.997 1.045 1.008 1.013 1.017 0.999 0.999 1.039 1.003 Japan 1.000 0.965 0.969 0.965 0.989 1.008 1.001 0.966 0.969 1.015 0.999 Korea 1.033 0.994 1.001 1.033 1.035 1.024 1.027 0.995 1.076 1.045 1.028 Netherlands 1.005 1.019 1.002 1.049 1.023 1.010 1.069 1.053 1.068 1.053 1.012 Norway 1.045 1.039 0.990 1.011 1.000 0.983 1.017 1.000 0.971 1.030 0.980 Poland 0.802 1.025 1.034 1.088 1.117 1.054 1.060 1.011 1.001 1.042 0.961 Portugal 0.983 0.964 0.988 0.973 0.991 0.989 0.981 0.967 0.968 0.983 0.991 Slovak Republic 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.966 0.973 0.976 1.014 1.075 0.879 Spain 1.000 0.996 0.999 1.001 1.008 1.021 1.006 1.010 1.006 1.012 1.015 Sweden 0.988 0.987 1.007 1.017 1.013 0.992 1.045 1.025 1.031 1.022 1.003 Switzerland 0.945 0.995 1.031 1.030 0.972 0.982 1.041 0.978 1.001 1.042 0.965 Turkey 0.851 1.052 1.117 0.629 1.045 1.020 1.049 0.971 0.945 1.027 0.972 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Table 6 (continued) 1990–1991 1991–1992 1992–1993 1993–1994 1994–1995 1995–1996 1996–1997 1997–1998 1998–1999 1999–2000 2000–2001 United Kingdom 0.979 1.022 1.033 1.049 1.027 1.002 1.041 1.034 1.032 1.038 1.024 United States 0.996 1.030 1.013 1.028 1.017 1.021 1.039 1.059 1.063 1.148 0.869 2001–2002 2002–2003 2003–2004 2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008–2009 2009–2010 2010–2011 2011–2012 Geometric average Australia 1.020 1.038 1.013 1.016 1.023 1.013 0.998 1.006 1.006 1.019 1.011 1.022 Austria 0.994 0.965 1.006 0.995 1.019 1.028 0.995 0.998 0.977 1.029 1.004 0.998 Belgium 1.024 0.987 1.011 1.016 1.018 1.053 0.986 0.976 1.011 1.057 0.994 1.005 Canada 1.010 0.995 1.018 1.031 1.023 0.987 1.003 0.984 1.023 1.010 1.008 1.012 Czech Republic 1.017 1.003 1.021 1.035 1.032 1.031 1.010 0.988 1.010 1.026 0.993 1.012 Denmark 1.015 0.992 1.029 1.020 0.972 0.998 1.030 0.999 1.003 1.213 1.097 1.019 Finland 0.988 0.982 1.081 1.048 0.964 1.011 1.020 0.987 0.964 1.046 1.001 1.010 France 1.016 0.996 1.032 1.018 1.042 1.037 0.995 0.982 1.007 1.071 1.000 1.016 Germany 1.004 0.983 1.020 1.017 1.037 1.074 0.991 0.949 1.019 1.067 1.000 1.017 Greece 1.007 1.000 1.026 0.984 1.019 0.994 1.007 0.987 1.006 0.965 1.031 0.998 Hungary 1.020 0.989 1.027 1.004 1.024 1.022 1.006 1.000 0.976 1.011 1.030 1.009 Ireland 1.027 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.941 0.992 0.980 1.022 0.995 1.076 1.000 1.000 Italy 0.989 0.967 1.012 1.000 1.026 1.020 0.990 0.978 1.015 1.034 0.976 1.006 Japan 0.984 1.021 1.023 1.005 1.025 1.057 1.046 0.918 1.089 0.966 1.036 1.000 Korea 1.054 1.013 1.031 1.023 1.041 1.037 1.014 0.994 1.027 1.016 1.007 1.025 Nether- lands 0.993 0.995 1.025 1.034 1.046 1.048 1.009 0.956 0.987 1.064 0.987 1.023 Norway 1.011 1.000 1.010 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.974 1.027 1.000 1.004 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 Table 6 (continued) 2001–2002 2002–2003 2003–2004 2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008–2009 2009–2010 2010–2011 2011–2012 Geometric average Poland 1.016 1.029 1.065 1.018 1.064 1.085 0.982 0.994 1.008 1.058 1.009 1.022 Portugal 0.971 1.004 0.993 0.995 1.019 1.006 1.017 0.999 1.033 1.023 1.038 0.994 Slovak Republic 1.047 0.996 0.979 1.006 1.042 1.064 1.000 0.964 0.996 1.017 1.025 1.000 Spain 1.001 0.993 0.993 1.005 1.045 1.013 1.040 1.018 1.008 1.007 0.995 1.009 Sweden 1.006 1.016 1.023 1.025 1.024 1.019 1.002 0.992 0.985 1.064 1.007 1.013 Switzer- land 1.028 0.967 1.016 1.021 1.084 1.106 1.009 0.963 1.032 1.074 1.000 1.012 Turkey 1.045 1.029 1.091 1.326 0.848 0.978 1.038 0.890 1.153 1.132 0.886 0.994 United Kingdom 1.039 1.031 1.025 1.037 1.032 1.036 0.993 0.995 0.994 1.201 0.912 1.025 United States 0.999 1.026 1.054 1.041 1.024 1.000 0.943 0.990 1.010 1.026 1.034 1.018 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Table 7 Averaged efficiency change (EC): 1990–2012 1990– 1991 1991– 1992 1992– 1993 1993– 1994 1994– 1995 1995– 1996 1996– 1997 1997– 1998 1998– 1999 1999– 2000 2000– 2001 2001– 2002 2002– 2003 2003– 2004 2004– 2005 2005– 2006 2006– 2007 2007– 2008 2008– 2009 2009– 2010 2010– 2011 2011– 2012 Geo- metric aver- age Australia 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.700 1.429 1.000 1.000 0.753 1.018 0.966 1.023 1.009 1.037 0.981 0.990 1.002 0.985 1.003 1.033 1.006 0.985 0.999 0.989 Austria 0.940 0.999 0.995 1.007 0.976 0.969 0.998 1.024 1.021 0.993 0.976 0.981 0.967 1.004 0.999 1.015 1.038 1.008 0.993 1.006 1.001 1.001 0.996 Belgium 0.989 0.973 0.968 0.978 0.977 0.943 0.993 0.998 1.041 0.987 0.971 1.019 0.983 0.997 1.003 1.011 1.040 0.998 0.997 1.031 1.032 0.964 0.995 Canada 0.961 0.973 1.014 1.031 1.006 0.978 1.015 1.042 1.010 1.012 1.009 0.997 0.978 0.988 1.010 1.005 0.979 1.005 0.990 1.020 0.987 0.982 0.999 Czech Republic 0.942 0.980 1.005 1.030 1.025 1.009 0.985 1.037 1.043 1.005 1.019 1.006 1.014 1.028 1.049 1.031 1.028 1.022 0.986 1.021 0.984 0.990 1.011 Denmark 0.931 1.006 0.985 1.012 1.006 0.967 1.028 1.040 1.033 1.035 0.998 0.992 1.003 1.025 1.048 0.984 1.012 1.032 0.977 1.013 1.238 1.000 1.015 Finland 0.981 0.999 1.011 1.002 1.042 1.003 1.014 1.019 1.024 1.036 0.996 0.978 0.995 1.051 1.060 0.971 1.028 1.034 0.980 0.979 1.017 0.996 1.010 France 0.980 1.035 1.004 1.086 1.000 0.915 1.010 1.082 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.005 Germany 1.233 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.010 Greece 0.980 0.965 0.983 0.988 0.980 0.974 0.986 0.999 1.022 0.989 1.008 0.992 1.002 1.023 0.991 1.017 1.001 1.022 0.984 1.029 0.926 1.018 0.994 Hungary 0.940 1.046 1.010 1.022 1.005 0.980 1.020 1.037 1.005 1.042 1.009 1.010 1.004 1.039 1.003 1.010 1.020 1.022 0.984 1.001 0.986 1.006 1.009 Ireland 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 Italy 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.913 1.095 1.000 1.000 0.885 0.986 0.994 Japan 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 Korea 1.027 0.994 1.009 1.028 1.027 1.002 1.005 1.006 1.086 1.009 1.015 1.041 1.022 1.010 1.010 1.013 0.988 1.023 1.039 1.012 0.966 1.012 1.015 Nether- lands 1.025 1.002 1.001 1.028 0.998 0.976 1.030 1.045 1.064 1.009 1.005 0.983 0.999 0.990 1.011 1.017 1.004 1.017 0.990 0.984 1.016 0.978 1.008 Norway 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 Poland 0.878 1.004 1.002 2.196 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.031 Portugal 1.000 1.000 0.630 0.918 0.986 0.994 0.964 0.988 0.975 0.972 1.001 0.955 1.015 0.995 1.010 1.017 1.007 1.031 0.982 1.053 0.963 1.026 0.972 Slovak Republic 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 Spain 1.012 0.989 1.011 0.962 0.994 1.006 0.981 1.009 1.005 0.975 1.013 1.004 1.005 0.965 0.984 1.015 0.953 1.051 1.226 1.000 0.813 0.997 0.996 Sweden 0.945 0.925 1.011 1.010 1.008 0.996 1.037 1.032 1.043 1.006 1.013 0.994 1.014 1.018 1.020 1.023 1.033 1.020 0.991 1.013 1.026 1.006 1.008 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 Table 7 (continued) 1990– 1991 1991– 1992 1992– 1993 1993– 1994 1994– 1995 1995– 1996 1996– 1997 1997– 1998 1998– 1999 1999– 2000 2000– 2001 2001– 2002 2002– 2003 2003– 2004 2004– 2005 2005– 2006 2006– 2007 2007– 2008 2008– 2009 2009– 2010 2010– 2011 2011– 2012 Geo- metric aver- age Switzer- land 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 Turkey 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 United King- dom 0.988 1.043 1.053 1.065 1.032 0.985 1.032 1.049 1.034 1.006 1.018 1.033 1.046 1.003 1.020 1.045 0.932 1.001 1.143 0.892 1.121 1.000 1.023 United States 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Table 8 Averaged technological change (TC): 1990–2012 1990– 1991 1991– 1992 1992– 1993 1993– 1994 1994– 1995 1995– 1996 1996– 1997 1997– 1998 1998– 1999 1999– 2000 2000– 2001 2001– 2002 2002– 2003 2003– 2004 2004– 2005 2005– 2006 2006– 2007 2007– 2008 2008– 2009 2009– 2010 2010– 2011 2011– 2012 Geo- metric aver- age Australia 1.003 1.050 1.037 1.471 0.718 1.028 1.037 1.390 1.011 1.035 1.009 1.011 1.002 1.033 1.026 1.021 1.029 0.996 0.974 1.000 1.035 1.012 1.034 Austria 1.032 1.032 0.996 1.006 1.005 0.999 1.015 0.980 0.991 1.017 0.992 1.013 0.998 1.002 0.996 1.003 0.990 0.987 1.005 0.971 1.028 1.003 1.003 Belgium 0.995 1.031 1.027 1.023 1.021 1.039 1.031 0.991 0.976 1.016 1.013 1.005 1.004 1.013 1.013 1.008 1.013 0.987 0.979 0.980 1.024 1.030 1.010 Canada 1.007 1.025 1.003 1.000 1.007 1.020 1.014 0.993 1.024 1.022 1.007 1.013 1.017 1.031 1.021 1.018 1.008 0.999 0.994 1.004 1.023 1.027 1.013 Czech Repub- lic 1.027 1.022 1.000 1.005 1.005 1.001 1.014 0.979 0.991 1.002 0.989 1.011 0.989 0.993 0.987 1.001 1.003 0.988 1.002 0.989 1.043 1.003 1.002 Denmark 1.021 1.026 0.997 1.002 1.005 0.999 1.013 0.980 0.999 0.998 1.000 1.023 0.988 1.003 0.974 0.988 0.986 0.999 1.023 0.990 0.980 1.097 1.004 Finland 1.015 1.017 1.002 1.003 0.996 0.989 1.002 1.005 0.991 0.994 0.992 1.010 0.987 1.028 0.989 0.993 0.983 0.987 1.007 0.984 1.028 1.006 1.000 France 0.997 0.985 0.998 0.953 1.013 1.083 1.022 0.944 1.037 1.034 1.003 1.016 0.996 1.032 1.018 1.042 1.037 0.995 0.982 1.007 1.071 1.000 1.012 Germany 0.871 1.034 0.980 1.032 1.007 0.984 1.028 1.022 1.026 1.032 1.009 1.004 0.983 1.020 1.017 1.037 1.074 0.991 0.949 1.019 1.067 1.000 1.008 Greece 1.026 1.029 0.999 1.007 1.007 1.002 1.018 0.980 0.992 1.013 0.993 1.015 0.999 1.004 0.993 1.002 0.993 0.985 1.004 0.978 1.042 1.013 1.004 Hungary 1.023 1.021 0.997 1.000 1.007 0.995 1.007 0.974 0.990 0.985 0.980 1.010 0.985 0.989 1.002 1.014 1.002 0.984 1.016 0.975 1.026 1.024 1.000 Ireland 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.989 1.012 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.974 1.027 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.941 0.992 0.980 1.022 0.995 1.076 1.000 1.000 Italy 0.999 1.011 0.997 1.045 1.008 1.013 1.017 0.999 0.999 1.039 1.003 0.989 0.967 1.012 1.000 1.026 1.117 0.904 0.978 1.015 1.168 0.989 1.012 Japan 1.000 0.965 0.969 0.965 0.989 1.008 1.001 0.966 0.969 1.015 0.999 0.984 1.021 1.023 1.005 1.025 1.057 1.046 0.918 1.089 0.966 1.036 1.000 Korea 1.006 1.000 0.992 1.005 1.008 1.022 1.022 0.989 0.990 1.035 1.013 1.013 0.991 1.020 1.014 1.028 1.050 0.991 0.957 1.014 1.052 0.996 1.009 Nether- lands 0.981 1.017 1.001 1.021 1.026 1.035 1.039 1.008 1.004 1.044 1.007 1.011 0.997 1.035 1.023 1.028 1.044 0.991 0.966 1.003 1.047 1.009 1.015 Norway 1.045 1.039 0.990 1.011 1.000 0.983 1.017 1.000 0.971 1.030 0.980 1.011 1.000 1.010 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.974 1.027 1.000 1.004 Poland 0.914 1.022 1.032 0.496 1.117 1.054 1.060 1.011 1.001 1.042 0.961 1.016 1.029 1.065 1.018 1.064 1.085 0.982 0.994 1.008 1.058 1.009 0.992 Portugal 0.983 0.964 1.567 1.060 1.005 0.996 1.018 0.978 0.993 1.011 0.989 1.018 0.989 0.998 0.985 1.002 0.998 0.987 1.018 0.982 1.062 1.012 1.022 Slovak Repub- lic 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.966 0.973 0.976 1.014 1.075 0.879 1.047 0.996 0.979 1.006 1.042 1.064 1.000 0.964 0.996 1.017 1.025 1.000 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 Table 8 (continued) 1990– 1991 1991– 1992 1992– 1993 1993– 1994 1994– 1995 1995– 1996 1996– 1997 1997– 1998 1998– 1999 1999– 2000 2000– 2001 2001– 2002 2002– 2003 2003– 2004 2004– 2005 2005– 2006 2006– 2007 2007– 2008 2008– 2009 2009– 2010 2010– 2011 2011– 2012 Geo- metric aver- age Spain 0.988 1.007 0.988 1.041 1.014 1.015 1.026 1.001 1.001 1.039 1.002 0.997 0.989 1.029 1.021 1.029 1.064 0.989 0.831 1.008 1.239 0.998 1.012 Sweden 1.045 1.067 0.996 1.007 1.005 0.996 1.008 0.994 0.989 1.015 0.991 1.012 1.002 1.005 1.005 1.001 0.986 0.983 1.001 0.973 1.037 1.001 1.005 Switzer- land 0.945 0.995 1.031 1.030 0.972 0.982 1.041 0.978 1.001 1.042 0.965 1.028 0.967 1.016 1.021 1.084 1.106 1.009 0.963 1.032 1.074 1.000 1.012 Turkey 0.851 1.052 1.117 0.629 1.045 1.020 1.049 0.971 0.945 1.027 0.972 1.045 1.029 1.091 1.326 0.848 0.978 1.038 0.890 1.153 1.132 0.886 0.994 United King- dom 0.991 0.980 0.981 0.985 0.995 1.017 1.009 0.986 0.998 1.032 1.005 1.006 0.985 1.022 1.017 0.988 1.112 0.992 0.871 1.114 1.071 0.912 1.002 United States 0.996 1.030 1.013 1.028 1.017 1.021 1.039 1.059 1.063 1.148 0.869 0.999 1.026 1.054 1.041 1.024 1.000 0.943 0.990 1.010 1.026 1.034 1.018 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Data availability The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Penn World Tables9.0 databases at https:// www. rug. nl/ ggdc/ produ ctivi ty/ pwt/ pwt- relea ses/ pwt9.0? lang= en (DOI: https:// doi. org/ 10. 15141/ S5J01T) OECD.Stat at https:// stats. oecd. org/. References Albagoury S (2016) Inclusive green growth in Africa: Ethiopia case study. University Library of Munich, Germany Albrizio S, Kozluk T, Zipperer V (2017) Environmental policies and productivity growth: evidence across industries and firms. J Environ Econ Manag 81:209–226 Ali I, Zhuang J (2007) Inclusive growth toward a prosperous Asia: policy implications (No. 97). ERD working paper series Ambec S, Cohen MA, Elgie S, Lanoie P (2013) The porter hypothesis at 20: can environmental regula- tion enhance innovation and competitiveness? Rev Environ Econ Policy 7(1):2–22 Arellano M, Bond S (1991) Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations. Rev Econ Stud 58(2):277–297 Arellano M, Bover O (1995) Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models. J Econom 68(1):29–51 Bartelsman E, Haltiwanger J, Scarpetta S (2013) Cross-country differences in productivity: the role of allocation and selection. Am Econ Rev 103(1):305–334 Bassanini A, Nunziata L, Venn D (2009) Job protection legislation and productivity growth in OECD countries. Econ Policy 24(58):349–402 Belot M, Boone J, Van Ours J (2007) Welfare-improving employment protection. Economica 74(295):381–396 Berton F, Devicienti F, Grubanov-Boskovic S (2017) Employment protection legislation and mismatch: evidence from a reform. IZA DP No. 10904, July Bierhanzl E (2005) The economics of employment regulation: lessons from America. Econ Aff 25(3):17–23 Blundell R, Bond S (1998) Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models. J Econom 87(1):115–143 Botta E, Kozluk T (2014). Measuring Environmental Policy Stringency in OECD Countries: a composite index approach. OECD Publishing OECD Economics Department Working Paper, No.1177. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1787/ 5jxrj nc45g vg- en Bouma J, Berkhout E (2015) Inclusive green growth. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. PBL publication,17, 8 Brännlund R, Lundgren T (2009) Environmental policy without costs? A review of the Porter hypothesis. Int Rev Environ Resour Econ 3(2):75–117 Cazes S (2013) Labor market institutions. In: Cazes S, Verick S (eds) Perspectives on labor economics for development. ILO, Geneva Cecere G, Corrocher N (2016) Stringency of regulation and innovation in waste management: an empiri- cal analysis on EU countries. Ind Innov 23(7):625–646 Chen G, Yang Z, Chen S (2020) Measurement and convergence analysis of inclusive green growth in the yangtze river economic belt cities. Sustainability 12(6):2356 Chung YH, Färe R, Grosskopf S (1997) Productivity and undesirable outputs: a directional distance func- tion approach. J Environ Manage 51(3):229–240 Damiani M, Pompei F, Ricci A (2016) Temporary employment protection and productivity growth in EU economies. Int Labour Rev 155(4):587–622 Esty DC, Porter ME (2005) National environmental performance: an empirical analysis of policy results and determinants. Environ Dev Econ 10(4):391–434 Färe R, Grosskopf S (2010) Directional distance functions and slacks-based measures of efficiency. Eur J Oper Res 200(1):320–322 Filippini M, Srinivasan S (2021) Adoption of environmental standards and a lack of awareness: evidence from the food and beverage industry in Vietnam. Environ Econom Policy Stud 24:1–34 Foa R (2009) Social and governance dimensions of climate change: implications for policy. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper (4939) Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 1 3 Fukuyama H, Weber WL (2009) A directional slacks-based measure of technical inefficiency. Socioecon Plann Sci 43(4):274–287 Garibaldi P, Violante GL (2005) The employment effects of severance payments with wage rigidities. Econ J 115(506):799–832 Jiang Y, Wang H, Liu Z (2021) The impact of the free trade zone on green total factor productivity—evi- dence from the shanghai pilot free trade zone. Energy Policy 148:112000 Johnstone N, Haščič I, Poirier J, Hemar M, Michel C (2012) Environmental policy stringency and tech- nological innovation: evidence from survey data and patent counts. Appl Econ 44(17):2157–2170 Kerstens K, Odonnell C, Van de Woestyne I (2019) Metatechnology frontier and convexity: a restate- ment. Eur J Oper Res 275(2):780–792 Koeniger W (2005) Dismissal costs and innovation. Econ Lett 88(1):79–84 Kumar S, Managi S (2009) Win–win opportunities and environmental regulation: test of the porter hypothesis. In: Managi S, Kumar S (eds) The economics of sustainable development. Springer, New York, pp 157–166 Lahouel BB (2016) Eco-efficiency analysis of French firms: a data envelopment analysis approach. Envi- ron Econ Policy Stud 18(3):395–416 Lahouel BB, Gaies B, Zaied YB, Jahmane A (2019) Accounting for endogeneity and the dynamics of corporate social–corporate financial performance relationship. J Clean Prod 230:352–364 Lahouel BB, Bruna MG, Zaied YB (2020) The curvilinear relationship between environmental perfor- mance and financial performance: an investigation of listed french firms using panel smooth transi- tion model. Financ Res Lett 35:101455. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1016/j. frl. 2020. 101455 Lahouel BB, Taleb L, Zaied YB, Managi S (2022) Does primary stakeholder management improve competitiveness? A dynamic network non-parametric frontier approach. Econ Model 116:106010. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1016/j. econm od. 2022. 106010 Lahouel BB, Zaied BY, Yang GL, Bruna MG, Song Y (2021) A non-parametric decomposition of the environmental performance-income relationship: evidence from a non-linear model. Ann Oper Res. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s10479- 021- 04019-x Lanoie P, Patry M, Lajeunesse R (2008) Environmental regulation and productivity: testing the porter hypothesis. J Prod Anal 30(2):121–128 Li HL, Zhu XH, Chen JY, Jiang FT (2019) Environmental regulations, environmental governance effi- ciency and the green transformation of China’s iron and steel enterprises. Ecol Econ 165:106397 Love I, Zicchino L (2006) Financial development and dynamic investment behavior: Evidence from panel VAR. Q Rev Econ Fin 46(2):190–210 Maji IK (2019) Impact of clean energy and inclusive development on CO2 emissions in sub-Saharan Africa. J Clean Prod 240:118186 Managi S (2004) Competitiveness and environmental policies for agriculture: testing the Porter hypoth- esis. Int J Agric Resour Gov Ecol 3(3–4):310–324 Managi S, Opaluch JJ, Jin D, Grigalunas TA (2005) Environmental regulations and technological change in the offshore oil and gas industry. Land Econ 81(2):303–319 Nakano M, Managi S (2008) Regulatory reforms and productivity: an empirical analysis of the Japanese electricity industry. Energy Policy 36(1):201–209 Nickell S, Layard R (1999) Labor market institutions and economic performance. In: Ashenfelter O, Card D (eds) Handbook of labor economics. North Holland, Amsterdam Noelke C (2016) Employment protection legislation and the youth labour market. Eur Sociol Rev 32(4):471–485 Oh DH (2010) A global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index. J Prod Anal 34(3):183–197 Palmer K, Oates WE, Portney PR (1995) Tightening environmental standards: the benefit-cost or the no- cost paradigm? J Econom Perspect 9(4):119–132 Pastor JT, Lovell CK (2005) A global Malmquist productivity index. Econ Lett 88(2):266–271 Porter ME (1991) America’s green strategy. Sci Am 264(4):168 Porter ME, Van der Linde C (1995) Toward a new conception of the environment-competitiveness rela- tionship. J Econom Perspect 9(4):97–118 Roodman D (2009a) A note on the theme of too many instruments. Oxford Bull Econ Stat 71(1):135–158 Roodman D (2009b) How to do xtabond2: an introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata. Stand Genom Sci 9(1):86–136 Rubashkina Y, Galeotti M, Verdolini E (2015) Environmental regulation and competitiveness: empirical evidence on the porter hypothesis from European manufacturing sectors. Energy Policy 83:288–300 1 3 Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Song M, Zhu S, Wang J, Zhao J (2020) Share green growth: regional evaluation of green output perfor- mance in China. Int J Prod Econ 219:152–163 Song X, Zhou Y, Jia W (2019) How do economic openness and R&D investment affect green economic growth?—evidence from China. Resour Conserv Recycl 146:405–415 Sun Y, Ding W, Yang Z, Yang G, Du J (2020) Measuring China’s regional inclusive green growth. Sci Total Environ 713:136367 Tone K (2001) A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis. Eur J Oper Res 130(3):498–509 Wang Y, Shen N (2016) Environmental regulation and environmental productivity: The case of China. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 62:758–766 Wang Y, Sun X, Guo X (2019) Environmental regulation and green productivity growth: Empirical evi- dence on the Porter Hypothesis from OECD industrial sectors. Energy Policy 132:611–619 World Bank (2012) Inclusive green growth : the pathway to sustainble development. World Bank Publi- cations, Washington Xie RH, Yuan YJ, Huang JJ (2017) Different types of environmental regulations and heterogeneous influ- ence on “green” productivity: evidence from China. Ecol Econ 132:104–112 Xue M, Harker PT (2002) Note: ranking DMUs with infeasible super-efficiency DEA models. Manage Sci 48(5):705–710 Yang M, Yuan Y, Yang F, Patino-Echeverri D (2021) Effects of environmental regulation on firm entry and exit and China’s industrial productivity: a new perspective on the porter hypothesis. Environ Econom Policy Stud 23:1–30 Zhao T, Yang Z (2017) Towards green growth and management: relative efficiency and gaps of Chinese cities. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 80:481–494 Zhu S, Ye A (2018) Does foreign direct investment improve inclusive green growth? Empir Evid China Econom 6(3):44 Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. Authors and Aliations BéchirBenLahouel1· LotTaleb2· ShunsukeManagi3· NadiaAbaoub4 Lotfi Taleb loootfi63@yahoo.fr Shunsuke Managi managi@doc.kyushu-u.ac.jp Nadia Abaoub nadiaabaoub@gmail.com 1 IPAG Business School, Paris, France 2 École Supérieure Des Sciences Économiques Et Commerciales Tunis, Université de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia 3 Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan 4 École Supérieure de Commerce de Tunis, Université de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia CITATIONS (11) REFERENCES (72) ... Streimikis et al. (2021) employed the Global DEA model to assess the energy efficiency of agriculture in the European Union. Ben Lahouel et al. (2023), in their study of inclusive green growth in OECD member countries, utilized the Global Malmquist index. Zhao et al. (2022) incorporated the Global Metafrontier SBM Super-efficiency model in their research on the impact of environmental regulations on green economic growth in China. ... An integrative study on the green cultural industry and its determinants in Jiangsu province, China under the cultural revitalization initiative: a global perspective Article Full-text available * Nov 2024 * Yaoyao Ding * Rong Zhang * Yuntao Zou Introductions The cultural industry is pivotal in promoting sustainable economic development. This study aims to evaluate the economic efficiency of the cultural industry in Jiangsu Province by establishing a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and analyzing influencing factors using the Tobit model, all within the broader context of China’s cultural industry. Methods A DEA model was developed to assess the economic efficiency of the cultural industry across Chinese provinces, allowing for a comparative analysis of performance. The Tobit regression model was utilized to investigate factors influencing these efficiency outcomes, with a particular emphasis on inter-provincial comparisons to understand the position and challenges faced by Jiangsu’s cultural industry. Results Despite Jiangsu’s cultural industry ranking among the largest in scale nationally, its economic efficiency is only moderate, consistently experiencing diminishing returns to scale. The study identifies low scale efficiency, small enterprise size, and suboptimal urbanization processes within the province as the main issues. Discussion The inefficiencies highlighted by the DEA model suggest a misalignment between the scale of operations and the economic outputs in Jiangsu’s cultural industry. Urbanization emerges as a crucial factor, with current practices not sufficiently supporting the growth potential of the cultural sector. Conclusion Based on these findings, the study proposes targeted policy recommendations for Jiangsu, including avoiding blind scale expansion, adjusting industrial structures, encouraging enterprise consolidation and optimization, and identifying new growth areas to better support the cultural industry’s development and contribute to sustainable economic progress. View Show abstract ... Streimikis et al. [51] used the Global DEA model to assess energy efficiency in EU agriculture, while Zhao et al. [52] employed a global frontier SBM super-efficiency model to study the impact of China's environmental regulations on green economic growth. Ben Lahouel et al. [53] further applied the Global Malmquist index to address feasibility issues in studying inclusive green growth among OECD countries. ... Urbanization and Cultural Industry Correlation: An Empirical Analysis from China Article Full-text available * Aug 2024 * Wen Zhang * Rong Zhang * Yuntao Zou The cultural industry has been recognized as an indispensable component of sustainable economic development. Urbanization often represents a country’s level of economic development. While China is advancing its new urbanization strategy, it is also vigorously promoting cultural revitalization plans. This study employs a global Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and Tobit regression analysis to examine the correlation between China’s cultural industry and urbanization. The results indicate that although the overall economic efficiency of China’s cultural industry is continuously improving, the returns to scale in many provinces are declining. Changes brought about by new urbanization, such as increases in per capita GDP, per capita income, and enterprise scale, have significant positive impacts on the cultural industry. However, the rising urban population ratio has a significant negative impact on the cultural industry. This study suggests that the current new urbanization in China faces issues of oversimplification and excessive advancement. It recommends adjusting relevant policies to allow sufficient time and space for the cultural industry to absorb the benefits brought by urbanization. Given China’s specific national conditions, the conclusions of this study may not necessarily apply to other regions. However, the global DEA-Tobit combination method used in this study aligns more closely with reality and achieves a higher degree of fit, thus possessing a certain level of universality. View Show abstract Political Risk and Sustainable Development: Digitization and Environmental Policy Stringency Article Full-text available * Nov 2024 * Chong Zhang * Menglu Zhang * Yunqiu Zhan * Jiale Yan View Paving towards the Sustainable Development Goals: Analyzing the Nexus of Financial Technology, Business-Centric-Tourism, and Green Growth Article * Nov 2024 * J ENVIRON MANAGE * Huma Iftikhar * Atta Ullah * Ningyu Qian * Magdalena Radulescu The world is facing crucial challenges such as environmental degradation, social inequality, and slow economic growth due to the transformative era. These challenges constitute a significant barrier to unlocking the world’s full potential. In response, inclusive green growth (IGG) has emerged as a focal point in global discourse due to the pivotal shift of legislators and researchers from conventional economic growth to inclusive green growth. This study aims to investigate the impact of business-centric-tourism and Fintech on inclusive green growth across 148 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) economies during the period spanning 2004-2021. Principal component analysis (PCA) is utilized to create indexes of inclusive green growth and Fintech. The Fintech index introduces twenty-one enabling and integrated indicators related to finance and technology while inclusive green growth is comprised of social inclusiveness, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. The two-step system-GMM corroborated by 2SLS (two-stage least square) technique indicates that business-centric-tourism and Fintech endorse inclusive green growth. Moreover, inclusive green growth is positively influenced by socioeconomic and energy factors such as renewable energy, globalization index, and business freedom index, while negatively impacted by urbanization and socio-economic conditions. This study adds value to business literature on inclusive green growth, particularly in emerging economies. Aligning research outcomes with diverse theoretical frameworks and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets to offer significant policy implications for balanced and inclusive growth. View Show abstract Coupling and coordination relationship of tourism inclusive green growth system: Evidence from Shandong Province Article * Sep 2024 * Tianjun Xu * Gangmin Weng * Wei Guo View Green Investments and Inclusive Growth: The Case of the BRICS Economies Article * Sep 2024 * Jamiu Olamilekan Badmus * Oluwadamilola Samuel Alawode * Sodiq Olaide Bisiriyu View Effect of digital finance on inclusive green growth: Evidence from China's urban agglomerations Article * Jun 2024 * Jiasen Sun * Tong Liu * Ruizeng Zhao This study uses a data envelopment analysis model to assess the inclusive green growth (IGG) level for five major urban agglomerations in China from 2013 to 2020. In addition, it analyzes the potential digital finance (DIF) mechanism affecting IGG. Several conclusions are obtained. First, the IGG levels of the five major urban agglomerations in China increase yearly, narrowing their gaps. Second, DIF can significantly promote IGG. Third, heterogeneity exists in the impact of DIF on IGG owing to the differences in city tiers and sizes. Meanwhile, the coverage and digitization level of DIF significantly and positively promote IGG. Fourth, financial supervision intensity and human capital level play a single‐threshold effect in the relationship between DIF and IGG. The contribution of DIF to IGG is further enhanced when financial regulation intensity and human capital level exceed the thresholds 0.0013 and 1.5084, respectively. Lastly, green technology innovation, regional entrepreneurship, and industrial structure upgrading have intermediary roles in the baseline path of DIF impacting IGG. View Show abstract Does Globalization Promote Green Growth? Empirical Evidence from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Countries Chapter * Jun 2024 * Muhammed Sehid Gorus When the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations in 2015, green growth was at the center of this initiative. Although many of the SDGs’ guiding principles and objectives are intimately tied to green growth, Goals 8 and 13 are directly related to this concept. Even though there have been several empirical investigations that examined the factors affecting the green growth performance of the countries, the impact of globalization has been neglected, especially at disaggregated levels. The current investigation aims to fill a gap in the empirical literature by exploring the effects of globalization on green growth by considering its different dimensions: aggregate globalization, economic globalization, trade globalization, financial globalization, social globalization, and political globalization. Besides, the environmental policy stringency index is incorporated into models as a control variable. The sample consists of 33 OECD countries covering the period from 2010 to 2020. The two-step system GMM and the Dumitrescu-Hurlin (DH) panel non-causality test are employed to reveal the aforementioned relationship. The empirical findings show that the green growth performance of the countries is positively and significantly affected by globalization, at both aggregate and disaggregate levels. The findings provide significant policy suggestions for sustainable development purposes of the countries. View Show abstract Demystifying circular economy and inclusive green growth for promoting energy transition and carbon neutrality in Europe Article * May 2024 * Struct Change Econ Dynam * Olatunji Shobande * Aviral Tiwari * Lawrence Ogbeifun * Nader Trabelsi View Towards the goal of going green: Do green growth and innovation matter for environmental sustainability in Pakistan Article * Oct 2023 * ENERGY * Boqiang Lin * Sami Ullah View Show more Adoption of environmental standards and a lack of awareness: evidence from the food and beverage industry in Vietnam Article Full-text available * Sep 2021 * Massimo Filippini * Suchita Srinivasan Voluntary approaches to environmental policy can contribute to stemming environmental degradation in developing countries with weak institutions. We evaluate the role of a lack of awareness of a law in explaining the voluntary adoption of environmental certification by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the food and beverage industry in Vietnam. We find that firms, where owners or managers were unaware of the law were 38 percentage points less likely to receive environmental certification. Moreover, this effect is larger for firms that exported, had internet access or paid bribes, and it is weaker for household enterprises. Our results suggest that increasing legal awareness can weaken informational constraints for SMEs, where weak institutions and a lack of information often hamper the uptake of environmental policy initiatives. View Show abstract A non-parametric decomposition of the environmental performance-income relationship: Evidence from a non-linear model Article Full-text available * Mar 2021 * ANN OPER RES * Béchir Ben Lahouel * Younes Ben Zaied * Guoliang Yang * Yaoyao Song This paper attempts to examine whether the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis is supported in Middle Eastern and North African countries. We use, a novel range-adjusted measure-based global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index, accounting for slacks of inputs as well as desirable and undesirable outputs, to evaluate and decompose “green” productivity growth rates into technical change, pure efficiency change, and scale change. By employing a panel smooth transition regression model, we investigate the income elasticity of environmental performance with respect to the decomposition factors. Our empirical results show that there are double thresholds when technical change and scale change are taken as transition variables, then leading to an inverted N-shaped curve between income and environmental performance. A single threshold has been found when pure efficiency change is considered as a transition variable, yielding to an inverted U-shaped curve. Thus, our research does not find support for the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis. View Show abstract Social And Governance Dimensions Of Climate Change: Implications For Policy Book * May 2009 * Roberto Foa View Reprint of: Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models Article * Mar 2023 * J ECONOMETRICS * Richard Blundell * Stephen Bond View Does primary stakeholder management improve competitiveness? A dynamic network non-parametric frontier approach Article * Aug 2022 * ECON MODEL * Béchir Ben Lahouel * Taleb Lotfi * Younes Ben Zaied * Shunsuke Managi This study examines whether positive primary stakeholder management is reflected in firm competitiveness. To conceptualize firm competitiveness, we follow a productivity perspective, in which technological and economic relationships between input consumption and output production are considered. Utilizing a three-stage dynamic network data envelopment analysis approach, we compute the Malmquist productivity index, which allows to examine the dynamics of the technology frontier and the levels of catch-up among a sample of international airlines observed between 2005 and 2019. We find that productivity, technological, and efficiency changes are enhanced by two dimensions of stakeholder management (i.e., employees and product/customer responsibility) that are socially required and capture economic and legal responsibilities. Dimensions of stakeholder management that are socially desired or expected (i.e., community, environment, and human rights) and are not directly related to operations or factors that create economic value, do not appear to play a significant role in improving airline productivity change. View Show abstract Job Protection Legislation and Productivity Growth in OECD Countries Article * Jan 2008 * Andrea Bassanini * Luca Nunziata * Danielle Venn View Employment Protection Legislation and Mismatch: Evidence from a Reform Article * Jan 2017 * Fabio Berton * Francesco Devicienti * Sara Grubanov-Boskovic View Effects of environmental regulation on firm entry and exit and China’s industrial productivity: a new perspective on the Porter Hypothesis Article * May 2021 * Mian Yang * Yining Yuan * Fuxia Yang * Dalia Patiño-Echeverri This paper dissects the effects of environmental regulation on the productivity of pollution-intensive industries and by doing so offers a new perspective on the Porter Hypothesis. A theoretical model that incorporates firm’s productivity heterogeneity shows that tighter environmental regulations impose two opposite effects on aggregate industry productivity: a negative productivity erosion effect on all the firms, and a positive productivity selection effect through impacts on firms’ entry and exit. Thus, the final effect of environmental regulation on industry productivity depends on the magnitude of the two individual effects. An empirical study supports the theoretical model. Data from 184,186 firms from 15 Chinese pollution-intensive industries during 1998–2007 shows that environmental regulation has imposed a significant negative effect on firm-level productivity but at the same time has affected the probability of entry and exit of low productivity firms. Stricter environmental regulation increases the probability of exit for the lower productivity firms and reduces the probability of entry for potential pollution-intense entrants, leading to significant resource reallocation within the industries. These two effects result in an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation stringency and aggregate industry productivity; aggregate industry productivity increases when the stringency of environmental regulation is neither too high nor too low. View Show abstract The impact of the free trade zone on green total factor productivity ——evidence from the shanghai pilot free trade zone Article * Jan 2021 * ENERG POLICY * Yufan Jiang * Hongyan Wang * Zuankuo Liu The green development of free trade zones conforms to the theoretical principles of sustainable development and is key to promoting regional transformation and upgrading. By using synthetic control methods (SCM) based on microscopic data, this paper investigates the net effect of the establishment of the China (Shanghai) pilot free trade zone (SPFTZ) on green total factor productivity (GTFP) in Shanghai. The results show that the SPFTZ has promoted the GTFP in Shanghai. As far as time trend is concerned, the effects of this promotion become more apparent after a short-term period of slow growth. In terms of impact paths, the main driving force of policy is technological progress. Therefore, the SPFTZ should improve GTFP and create greater incentives for technological innovation. Institutional innovation for green development should play a central guiding role in the construction. We need continue to explore other green development models as well as means of creating higher levels of economic openness. View Show abstract How to do Xtabond2: An Introduction to Difference and System GMM in Stata Article * Mar 2009 * David Roodman The difference and system generalized method-of-moments estimators, developed by Holtz-Eakin, Newey, and Rosen (1988, Econometrica 56: 1371–1395); Arellano and Bond (1991, Review of Economic Studies 58: 277–297); Arellano and Bover (1995, Journal of Econometrics 68: 29–51); and Blundell and Bond (1998, Journal of Econometrics 87: 115–143), are increasingly popular. Both are general estimators designed for situations with “small T, large N″ panels, meaning few time periods and many individuals; independent variables that are not strictly exogenous, meaning they are correlated with past and possibly current realizations of the error; fixed effects; and heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation within individuals. This pedagogic article first introduces linear generalized method of moments. Then it describes how limited time span and potential for fixed effects and endogenous regressors drive the design of the estimators of interest, offering Stata-based examples along the way. Next it describes how to apply these estimators with xtabond2. It also explains how to perform the Arellano–Bond test for autocorrelation in a panel after other Stata commands, using abar. The article concludes with some tips for proper use. View Show abstract Show more RECOMMENDED PUBLICATIONS Discover more Article Full-text available FINANCIAL STABILITY, LIQUIDITY RISK AND INCOME DIVERSIFICATION: EVIDENCE FROM EUROPEAN BANKS USING T... June 2022 · Annals of Operations Research * Béchir Ben Lahouel * Taleb Lotfi * Younes Ben Zaied * Shunsuke Managi Liquidity risk was at the heart of 2007–2008 global financial crisis, which has led to a series of financial institutions failure. We test whether and how liquidity risk impacts European banks’ stability (i.e., a bank risk-return profile) under different levels of engagement in non-traditional banking activities after the global financial crisis and during the implementation of the Basel III ... [Show full abstract] liquidity rules. To calculate financial stability, we adopt an efficiency perspective based on the combination of the CAMELS rating system with the data envelopment analysis technique. We implement a nonlinear panel smooth transition regression approach, where transitional factors of income diversification are endogenously captured from the data. We find that, liquidity risk stemming from liquidity creation has a positive impact on bank stability, implying that income diversification can serve as a “buffer” through which banks can ensure their liquidity creation and offset for the compression of intermediation margin in lending and deposit activities. This suggests that diversification does not impede the ability of banks to operate with lower liquidity holdings but allows them to make greater use of their balance sheets to fulfill their primary roles of credit provision and liquidity creation. The results offer interesting implications for regulators and bank managers in managing liquidity risk. View full-text Article THE THRESHOLD EFFECTS OF ICT ON CO2 EMISSIONS: EVIDENCE FROM THE MENA COUNTRIES June 2022 · Environmental Economics and Policy Studies * Béchir Ben Lahouel * Taleb Lotfi * Shunsuke Managi * Khaled Guesmi The objective of this paper is to investigate the nonlinear relationship between ICT and CO2 emissions by controlling for economic growth, foreign direct investment, energy consumption, and trade openness. Using data from 16 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries over the period 1990–2019, we apply the Panel Smooth Transition Regression (PSTR) model, as introduced by (González A, ... [Show full abstract] Teräsvirta T, vanDijk D (2005) Panel smooth transition regression models. SEE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance, No. 604), to study the potential regime-switching behavior of the relationship between the variables. The results reveal the existence of a strong regime-switching effect between ICT and CO2 emissions. It was found that after reaching a certain threshold, ICT use and penetration starts to significantly mitigate environmental degradation. Our results show that high levels of ICT not only improve environmental quality but can also be part of the solution to combat the environmental challenges that the MENA region has faced over the past decades. In addition, to account for the potential endogeneity bias, we also develop and estimate a PSTR model with instrumental variables (IV-PSTR) using the approach of (Fouquau et al., Econ Model 25:284–299, 2008). The results obtained confirm those initially found by the PSTR model. The study concludes with policy implications. Read more Article Full-text available LLEE WORKING PAPER SERIES ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: MAIN POLICY CHALLENGES February 2020 * Roberta De Santis * Piero Esposito * Cecilia jona lasinio In this paper, we empirically analyse the environmental regulation-productivity nexus for 14 OECD countries in the period 1990-2013. Our findings support the hypothesis that environmental policies have a productivity growth enhancing effect through innovation as suggested by Porter and Van Der Linde (1995). We provide evidence that both market and nonmarket based policies foster labour and ... [Show full abstract] multifactor productivity growth and that the positive association is better captured by environmental adjusted productivity indicators. Moreover, we find that productivity increases resulting from changes in the environmental regulation pass through a stimulus to capital accumulation and this effect is concentrated in high ICT intensive countries. Overall, the need to speed up the transition towards a “green economy” for environmental protection purposes can be seen also as an opportunity to improve competitiveness generating a virtuous circle between innovation and environmental friendly production techniques. View full-text Article Full-text available RE-THINKING ABOUT U: THE RELEVANCE OF REGIME-SWITCHING MODEL IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENT... November 2021 · Journal of Business Research * Béchir Ben Lahouel * Younes Ben Zaied * Shunsuke Managi * Taleb Lotfi Notion of ‘when it pays to be green?’ can be identified by the threshold values of environmental corporate social responsibility performance that determine the smooth movement from one regime to another. We examine a potential regime switching as a novel framework in the analysis of the nonlinear relationship between environmental corporate social responsibility and financial performances ... [Show full abstract] employing a Panel Smooth Transition Regression model. Using a panel data of listed French, German, Italian, and Spanish firms over 2005 to 2017, the results show various and different relationships ranging from nonlinear positive, nonlinear negative, to inverted U-shaped. We discuss the consistence of our findings to the theoretical model of different possible relationships. View full-text Last Updated: 06 Jan 2025 Discover the world's research Join ResearchGate to find the people and research you need to help your work. Join for free ResearchGate iOS App Get it from the App Store now. Install Keep up with your stats and more Access scientific knowledge from anywhere or Discover by subject area * Recruit researchers * Join for free * Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login PasswordForgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login PasswordForgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up Company About us News Careers Support Help Center Business solutions Advertising Recruiting © 2008-2025 ResearchGate GmbH. All rights reserved. * Terms * Privacy * Copyright * Imprint * Consent preferences