TY  - JOUR
AU  - Popp,David
TI  - Exploring Links Between Innovation and Diffusion: Adoption of NOx Control Technologies at U.S. Coal-Fired Power Plants
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12119
PY  - 2006
Y2  - March 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12119
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12119.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David Popp
Department of Public Administration
and International Affairs
Syracuse University
The Maxwell School
426 Eggers Hall
Syracuse, NY 13244-1020
Tel: 315/443-2482
Fax: 315/443-1081
E-Mail: dcpopp@maxwell.syr.edu
AB  - While many studies have looked at innovation and adoption of technologies separately, the two processes are linked. Advances (and expected advances) in a single technology should affect both its adoption rate and the adoption of alternative technologies. Moreover, advances made abroad may affect adoption differently than improvements developed domestically. This paper combines plant-level data on U.S. coal-fired electric power plants with patent data pertaining to NOx pollution control techniques to study these links. I show that technological advances, particularly those made abroad, are important for the adoption of newer post-combustion treatment technologies, but have little effect on the adoption of older combustion modification techniques. Moreover, I provide evidence that adaptive R&D by U.S. firms is necessary before foreign innovations are adopted in the U.S. Expectations of future technological advances delay adoption. Nonetheless, as in other studies of environmental technologies, the effect of other explanatory variables is dominated by the effect of environmental regulations, demonstrating that the mere presence of environmental technologies is not enough to encourage its usage.
ER  -