The environmental sector in Germany

Abstract

"The Environmental Sector produces technologies, products and services that prevent or reduce environmental damages. On the Background of growing environmental problems such as global warming this sector seems to be more and more important. Contrary to that, a theoretical model shows that this hypothesis may not be true for all sections of the environmental sector. End-of-pipe solutions that operate independently from production processes are mostly driven by environmental regulation so that the demand for these products reacts rather inelastic. This may not be the case for cleaner technologies that are in most cases an integrated part of the production process. Cost savings are a major motivation to introduce these technologies and products. Our analysis based an the establishment panel of the Institute for Employment Research shows a drastic decline of the number of firms and employment in environmental sectors dominated by end-of-pipe technologies but there are positive employment developments and expectations for those cleaner technologies that are captured by our data. This observation is confirmed by an econometric analysis explaining the driving forces of the market shares of firms in the environmental sector." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Horbach, J., Blien, U. & Hauff, M. (2009): The environmental sector in Germany. Structural change and determinants of market shares. In: Zeitschrift für Umweltpolitik und Umweltrecht, Vol. 32, No. 4, p. 427-446.