Today, firms are faced with a number of environmental challenges, such as global warming, pollution control and declining natural resources. While there is increasing pressure to deliver environmentally friendly products and services, little is known about what drives the many different types of environmental innovation, or how such pursuits' impact firm performance. Using a sample of 2181 firms, this paper examines the factors that drive nine different types of eco-innovation in Ireland, and assesses how such innovations impact firm performance. We find that, while demand-side, supply-side and regulatory drivers impact on the likelihood of a firm engaging in eco-innovation, the relative magnitudes of these impacts vary across the types of eco-innovation considered. Moreover, we find that only two of the nine types of eco-innovation positively impact firm performance. The results point to regulation and customer pressure as viable mechanisms through which firms can be encouraged to ecoinnovate.

Purpose -Recent OECD (2010, 2011) reports argue that eco-innovation is the key to realising growth. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the drivers of eco-innovation and to compare the impact of eco-innovation and non-eco-innovation on firm performance. The paper provides insights into the role government regulation can play in directing and stimulating eco-innovation. Design/methodology/approach -The approach utilised by this paper is empirical in nature. A modified innovation production function is used to assess the impact of regulation, consumer expectations and voluntary agreements on the performance of eco-innovation while a knowledge augmented production function is used to assess the impact of eco-innovation on firm performance. Findings -The findings suggest that regulation and customer perception can explain a firm"s decision to engage in eco-innovation. Eco-innovation is also found to be more important than non-eco-innovation in determining firm performance. Research limitations/implications -Due to the limited availability of accounting data this paper uses turnover per worker as the measure of firm performance. As a result it is not possible to assess the impact of eco-innovation on firm costs. Social implications -The finding that regulation drives eco-innovation and that there is no trade-off between the optimal outcomes of lower levels of pollution for society and higher profit margins for businesses suggests that regulators and policy makers can stimulate growth and create a greener society. Originality/value -This paper provides an empirical analysis of the Porter and van der Linde"s (1995) theory of environmental regulation and firm performance using novel real world data from over 2,000 Irish businesses.

This paper analyses whether different measure of entrepreneurship can explain economic growth. It utilises 14 difference indicators of entrepreneurship to analyse the contribution of entrepreneurial activity, aspirations, and attitudes to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. It also examines whether the importance of entrepreneurship varies across high-income and middle/low-income countries. An unbalanced panel of 55 countries over the time period 2004-2011 is used. Fourteen different indicators of entrepreneurship are utilised and are condensed into three components using principle components analysis. Regression analysis is then used to assess whether these three different components of entrepreneurship drive economic growth. The results indicate that entrepreneurial attitudes are found to stimulate GDP per capita in high-income countries while entrepreneurial activity is found to have a negative effect in middle/low-income economies.

Indices Resilience and recovery indices measure the initial impact of a crisis and subsequent recovery.