Revisiting ISO 14001 diffusion among national terrains: panel data evidence from OECD countries and the BRIICS

Abstract

Being one of the primary soft-voluntary environmental policy instruments, ISO 14001 has been studied from a number of diverse perspectives and disciplines. Nevertheless, it is only few assessments that have attempted to shed light on variations in the diffusion ISO 14001 certification among countries in terms of national factors and macroeconomic conditions that may stimulate relevant implementation patterns. We employ a 1999–2017 annual time-series that yields a panel dataset of 33 countries, out of which 27 are OECD countries, complemented by the BRIICS. Applying the appropriate static and dynamic econometric specifications, the EKC hypothesis is not rejected in all the cases in static and dynamic specifications. Our turning points are in all cases within the sample ranging from $20,812 to $52,023. © 2021, Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies and Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature.