Green Innovation and Income Inequality: A Complex System Analysis
32 Pages Posted: 31 Jul 2020 Last revised: 28 Oct 2021
Date Written: July 30, 2020
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to analyse the relationship between income inequality and environmental innovation. We use a complexity-based algorithm to compute an index of green inventive capacity in a panel of 57 countries over the period 1970–2010. The empirical analysis reveals that, on average, inequality is detrimental to countries’ capacity to engage complex green technologies knowledge bases. Using non-parametric methods allows us to further articulate this general finding and to uncover interesting non-linearities in the relationship between innovation and inequality.
Keywords: Complexity; Environmental Innovation; Inequality
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