Does Host Market Regulation Induce Cross‐Border Environmental Innovation?

This paper evaluates the effect of host-country environmental policy stringency on the offshoring of environmental patents for 2000 top world R&D performers. It is shown that a more stringent environmental regulation triggers both the extensive and intensive margin of patent offshoring in the field of environmental technologies. Results are robust to various different specifications, alternative definitions of regulation restrictions and to the consideration of possible endogeneity of regulation. It is suggested inter alia that R&D subsidies and non-market based instrument are more important than market-based instruments as drivers of cross-border environmental innovation.