Adoption Gaps of Environmental Adaptation Technologies with Public Effects
研究外部性如何导致环境适应和减缓技术的采用偏离社会最优状态，分析过度采用和采用不足的成因，并探讨绿色政策和环境倾销的潜在反效果。
Abstract As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2018) testifies, the world is a long way from halting climate change, let alone reverting it. The existence of adaptation and mitigation technologies did not prove sufficient, their adoption being respectively faulted or hindered by the presence of externalities. In this work, we study how externalities, whether positive or negative, lead the system away from Pareto-dominant (social optimum) states, towards Pareto-dominated ones. We show that adoption gaps, i.e. differences between socially optimum vs current adoption shares, of both (mal)adaptation and mitigation technologies are caused by the externalities emitted. In particular, over-adoption may occur for maladaptive technologies, whereas under-adoption may occur in case of mitigation. We employ a model with two regions at different stages of development and also derive relevant considerations on possible counterproductive effects of green policies and environmental dumping.