Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 04/2010

Challenges To Technology Transfer: A Literature Review Of The Constraints On Environmental Technology Dissemination

Daniel K.N. Johnson, Kristina M. Lybecker

August 2009

Department of Economics and Business, Colorado College

Abstract

This paper considers the challenges to the dissemination of environmental innovation. Following a brief exploration of the legal and regulatory regimes surrounding environmental technologies, the paper examines diffusion mechanisms, market factors, social characteristics and political elements that facilitate and complicate dissemination. Given the importance of innovation to economic development and growth, the diffusion of innovation is of great interest to economists and policymakers alike.