Linkages between environmental policy and competitiveness

This paper was developed in the context of the 2008 meeting of the OECD Environment Policy Committee at Ministerial level. The relationship between environmental policy and competitiveness is an important policy topic, the relevance of which is only heightened by the ongoing climate negotiations. The OECD has previously carried out a stock-taking study of the topic (Adams, 1997), and there is a need to update the stock-taking exercise. The objective of this study is to cover recent conceptual developments on the environmental policy, competitiveness linkages as well as to review empirical research literature since 1997. To this end, the paper develops an analytical framework of the linkages between environmental policy and competitiveness and, based on this framework, presents a literature review. The paper does not attempt to conduct new research, nor will it address issues which are not covered by the existing literature.

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