Technical efficiency under alternative environmental regulatory regimes : the case of Dutch horticulture

We consider the performance of small and medium sized enterprises in Dutch horticulture under different environmental policy regimes across time. We address the question whether technical performance differs under these alternative regulatory regimes to test Porter's hypothesis that stricter environmental regulation reduces technical inefficiency. For this purpose, we use a stochastic production frontier framework allowing for inclusion of policy variables to measure the effect of alternative environmental policy regimes on firms' performance. The main result is that stricter environmental pol... Mehr ...