The Clean Development Mechanism and Dynamic Capabilities of Implementing Firms: Evidence from India ,Working Paper 106 - 16

Working Papers » The Clean Development Mechanism and Dynamic Capabilities of Implementing Firms: Evidence from India

By : Aradhna Aggarwal

This study assesses the impact of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) on the dynamic capabilities of implementing firms in India. While doing so, it uses three indicators of firms' dynamic capabilities: R&D expenditures to sales ratio, fuel consumption to sales ratio and total factor productivity growth. It moves away from the analysis of technology transfer claims made in either Project Development Documents or primary surveys to use actual information on firms' performance for the analysis. A difference-in-difference design is used by defining CDM-implementing firms as the treatment group and non-CDM firms as the control group for the pre- and post-CDM implementation periods. We control for unobserved fixed effects of firms and time periods and observed characteristics of firms and CDM projects. The analysis draws on the balance sheet data of 612 firms from India between 2001 and 2012 from the PROWESS database. Our results reveal that the CDM implementation does not have significant outcome effects on the dynamic capabilities of firms. Much depends on the type and size of the project, and size of the firm.

Keywords :CDM, Dynamic capability, R&D, Fuel efficiency, Total factor productivity, India

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