European carbon emission standards for passenger cars: an economic stimulus or a burden? A qualitative study of the European Automobile Industry

• Autor(a) principal: Tassenoe, Thomas
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/30155
• topic: Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

The European automobile industry has terribly suffered from the economic meltdown which occurred in 2008. At the same time, European institutions implemented a plan in order to decrease the environmental footprint of the sector, by decreasing the carbon emissions from passenger cars. The latter appears to be an additional pressure over an already ailing industry. This paper aims at understanding the impact of this stringent policy on the economic performance of the European automobile sector from the trade balance perspective. Based on Porter Hypothesis, it will be analysed how the regulation affected the innovation performance of European-based firms with regard to the American-based ones. Moreover, it will be explained how this policy can constitute a trade barrier to non-European manufacturers. The results suggest that the regulation enhanced the economic performance of the European automobile industry by limiting the imports on the saturated European market and by enhancing the exports through the development of more efficient vehicles.