Environmental options and technological innovation: an evolutionary game model

This paper analyzes the effects on economic agents’ behavior of an innovative environmental protection mechanism that the public administration of a tourist region may adopt to attract visitors while protecting the environment. On the one hand, the public administration sells to the tourists an environmental call option that gives them the possibility of being (partially or totally) reimbursed if the environmental quality in the region turns out to be unsatisfactory. On the other hand, it offers the firms that adopt an innovative, non-polluting technology an environmental put option that allows them to get a reimbursement for the additional costs imposed by the new technology if the environmental quality is sufficiently good. The aim of the paper is to study the dynamics that arise with this financial mechanism from the interaction between the economic agents and the public administration in an evolutionary game context.