Greener or cheaper goods: Economies of scope in R&D investments
研究了在环境规制下企业同时投资于成本降低型研发和绿色研发的动机，发现范围经济会影响投资决策，且传统仅考虑单一研发类型会导致税收不足问题。
This paper examines firms’ incentives to simultaneously invest in cost-reducing and in green R&D (abatement) under the presence of regulation. We show that, without regulation, firms only invest in cost-reducing R&D when economies of scope are absent, but invest in both types of R&D otherwise. With regulation, investments exhibit strategic complementarities, with and without economies of scope, leading to more investments in cost-reducing R&D, thus requiring more stringent emission fees. Assuming that firms invest in only one form of R&D, a traditional approach in the literature, gives rise to an undertaxation problem. This inefficiency is attenuated if R&D investments exhibit economies of scope, but emphasized if pollution is severe, and the market is concentrated; which is further increased when investment decisions are sequential.