Works councils and environmental investment: Theory and evidence from German panel data [An article from: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization]

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Firms may underinvest in local environmental protection even from the viewpoint of owners and employees, but works councils may mitigate this. We show increases in environmental investments when councils are present may be employee led, firm led or jointly led. We test these alternatives using German panel data, finding strong, robust relationships between environmental investments and council activities. This effect is largest when councils are active in environmental matters. We generally do not find effects on investments that reduce environmental impacts remote from the workplace or other investments. We conclude that higher environmental investments in establishments with councils are largely employee led or jointly led.