Do you know of any specific refutations of the Porter Hypothesis?
According to the Porter Hypothesis, strict environmental regulations can induce efficiency and encourage innovations that help improve commercial competitiveness. The hypothesis was formulated by the economist Michael Porter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_hypothesis
Central planning keeps coming into mind with the terms efficiency and regulation.
Seems to me “Strict environmental regulation” will always come at an economic cost. Imagine how much transport would cost if we abandoned fossil fuels tomorrow. In that case the environmentalists wish to impose a false scarcity on a good that is in abundance.
If this is for a specific person ask them if the cost of transport would go up or go down if we were to abandon gasoline tomorrow. If their answer is go up, then your followign question would be. How is that improved effeciency?
duh, our brilliant technocrats will invent teleportation! problem solved…
banning oil provides more of an incentive to invent teleportation than before, and there’s nothing a technocrat can’t invent if he believes in himself. erego, you are holding us back from teleportation!!!
I’m still waiting for my hover craft they promised us back in the 70’s :*(
A hypothesis is defined in the Popperian paradigm as a thesis that is created solely for the purpose attempting to disprove it. I guess the specific refutation would be that it is a hypothesis. If someone claimed that it is a theory, I would ask for the (non-existant) proof.
How does it define efficiency and account for the ‘unseen’ (efficiency and innovations that did not take place due to the regulation or ones that should not have but did take place &c.)? I am pretty sure it does not.
He also said:
A carbon tax would lead to a rethinking of energy use, drive innovation in the green economy and yield profits for “first movers,” Porter said.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/need+carbon/3214419/story.html#ixzz0uGJa3zxL
I’m guessing they use Kaldor-Hicks efficiency. Whether the hypothesis ignores the unseen is a question that interests me too.
I though it was going to be complete bullshit, but I actually kind of agree.
If you change “strict environmental regulations” for “enforcing environmental property rights” it makes sense. At the beggining, it will raise costs and this will stimulate companies to look for other methods to produce cheaper. Probably not everything will be able to get more efficient and cheaper, but a important part will.
It does not account for the “unseen” because you are actually influencing in the way developments are made. You are taking resources away from other developments and putting them into more eco-friendly developments. Its just really a matter of preferences of what are you going to focus on.
I think CO2 and global warming is bull, but taking care of the environment is an important issue, so I think eco-friendly developments are good. In any case, just enforce environmental issues through property rights, and let people decide.
It does not account for the “unseen” because you are actually influencing in the way developments are made. You are taking resources away from other developments and putting them into more eco-friendly developments.
Yeah. How’s that good?
Having a better environment?
If I have a property how is it good that the guy next door can polute my water, or my air? I have the right to see my property not changed in a meaning and harmfull way. The fact that the guy next door spends time developing a way to produce without polluting my land is respecting my right.
I would say, a special tax on Porter that costs him 1000 dollars for each breath he takes, would make him innovate on the ways he makes money.
Having a better environment?
I’m referring more so the not being able to estimate the unseen part, i.e. the full costs of the regulations.
If I have a property how is it good that the guy next door can polute my water, or my air? I have the right to see my property not changed in a meaning and harmfull way. The fact that the guy next door spends time developing a way to produce without polluting my land is respecting my right.
Yes, I agree wrt to private property right enforcement against pollution etc. I’m more concerned with environmental regulations which do not necessarily mimick the effect it’d have.
There would be a “cost” in the sense that you are choosing a better environment over other posible options, that is obvious. If you are refering to the guy saying that it would drive development and stuff, yeah, he is obviously missing the unseen, but I though it was clear I alredy admited that. The guy is trying to sell his point by ignoring the unseen, so his hypothesis sounds more appealing.
I think an analogy could be drawn with patents. If the Hypothesis was correct the industrial revolution wouldn’t have been set back two decades while waiting for James watt’s patent to expire.