Explaining firm's decision to invest in Pollution Abatement in Romania: an empirical approach using panel data estimator

摘要

Employing organizational and institutional theory this paper empirically documents the adoption of environmental behavior by firms in Romania in the latest transition period. We focus on the regulatory, normative, and cognitive aspects driving decision-making process to adopt environmental behavior in the specific conditions of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) developing economies. To achieve this objective we use an unbalanced panel of Romanian facilities data for the period 2002 - 2005. Generally, rule of law in developing states are often weak and its regulations are old fashioned and its enforcement is not reliable. But this context are not entirely valid for CEE countries, because the eastern enlargement process of the European Union imposed to the applicant countries the acquis communautaire adoption by which among many requirements suppose the improvements to the environmental regulatory system. If several empirical studies deal with the hypotheses proposed and tested using data from developed economies, very few - particularly at the plant level - were carried out on the particularly environment of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) developing economies. Thus, we provide an empirical confirmation that several dimensions i.e. plant, community, market and regulatory characteristics explain plant adoption patterns of environmental behavior and lead to different policy recommendations. Our results suggest that there are some significant differences in the factors influencing plant to invest in Pollution Abatement in Romania relative to those found for developed countries.