Seminar - "Innovation, Green Products and Trade: Evidence from Multiproduct Firms" - Daniele Moschella

Join us for a virtual presentation by Daniele Moschella of Sant' Anna School of Advanced Studies, an Associate Professor in the Institute of Economics.

Seminar title:  Innovation, Green Products and Trade: Evidence from Multiproduct Firms

Abstract:  Whether markets can drive the green transition depends on how environmentally friendly products fare in international competition, an open question given the scarcity of product-level evidence. Using Italian customs data (2005–2019) matched to firm patent portfolios, we track export transactions by firm, product, destination, and patent status, with green products and patents classified through OECD and WIPO taxonomies. We examine whether green attributes translate into a competitive advantage or disadvantage, and through which channels, drawing on three sources of variation: within-firm differences in patent protection across destinations, exogenous real exchange rate shocks, and destination-specific environmental policy stringency.

Unpatented green products face a price-quantity trade-off: they command higher unit values but sell substantially lower quantities, yielding net revenue penalties. Their amplified sensitivity to exchange rate shocks reveals structural margin constraints that limit markup adjustment and penalize green relative to conventional products. Green products whose producer holds the relevant technology sell substantially more, in quantity and in value; the differential survives controls for the position of the variety in the firm's portfolio and does not depend on the environmental content of the patent. We find no evidence that innovation eases the pricing constraints green products face: the association runs through volumes, and it persists when we control for where patent protection is in force. Stricter destination environmental policy expands green exports mainly through quantities rather than prices, attenuating but not eliminating the disadvantages of unpatented green products.

Overall, environmental attributes alone impose competitive disadvantages that price premia cannot overcome, whereas patent protection, by addressing problems of appropriability and credibility, allows green products to overcome the quantity constraints that otherwise limit their diffusion.

Short bio: Daniele Moschella is Associate Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economics of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa. He holds a PhD in Economics from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and a degree in Philosophy from the University of Pisa and Scuola Normale Superiore.

Professor Moschella has been Principal Investigator and Unit Coordinator of three competitively funded research projects awarded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research: "Automation, Trade, and Global Value Chains" (PRIN 2022, PI), "Technological Change, Industry Evolution and Employment Dynamics" (PRIN 2017, Unit Coordinator), and "Trade, Reallocation, and Productivity during the Great Recession" (SIR 2015, PI). He has also been a project member in two Horizon 2020 RIA projects funded by the European Commission: GROWINPRO (2019–2021) and ISIGrowth (2015–2018).

He serves as Advisory Board Member of the Journal of Industrial and Business Economics and has been Guest Editor of special issues of Industrial and Corporate Change (2024) and Industry and Innovation (2026).