Title: Promoting sustainable environmental practices amongst automobile consumers: an evaluation of the impacts of pursuing innovations in tax regulations

Authors: Colin C. Williams; Amadeo Fuenmayor; Sara Nadin; Sonia Dasí

Addresses: Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK. ' Departmento de Economia Aplicada, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain Av. Tarongers, s.n., 46022, Valencia, Spain. ' Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK. ' Departmento de Dirección de Empresas Juan José Renau Piqueras, Universidad de Valencia, Av. Tarongers, s.n., 46022, Valencia, Spain

Abstract: The growing importance of environmental sustainability has resulted in governments pursuing innovative regulatory changes in order to achieve this goal. The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically whether pursuing innovative regulations in the realm of environmental taxation have elicited more sustainable practices amongst automobile consumers in Spain. The finding is that the tax innovations of the Spanish government that seek to internalise externalities, namely the registration tax and fuel tax, but not the annual circulation tax, are leading automobile consumers to pursue more environmentally sustainable practices, and are also resulting in the automotive sector itself pursuing innovations in the form of strategic alliances to increase the level of product and process innovations so as to achieve greater environmental sustainability.

Keywords: automobile industry; public policy; environmental taxation; sustainable development; environmental sustainability; innovation; Spain; automotive consumers; tax regulations; registration tax; fuel tax; circulation tax.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIRD.2012.048985

International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development, 2012 Vol.4 No.5, pp.349 - 364

Received: 10 Sep 2011
Accepted: 11 Jan 2012
Published online: 23 Aug 2014 *

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