2025/02/27 by J. Fischer · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Climate Change Policy and Economics #European Union Policy and Governance
paper · pdf · doi:10.31219/osf.io/52u8e_v1
Why do some car manufacturers support the phaseout of the internal combustion engine car while others resist it? And why do part suppliers univocally oppose it? In an in-depth case study and drawing on 27 elite interviews, I show that firms' ability to repurpose their existing assets for electric vehicle production can explain the intra- and inter-industry variation in the auto sector's engagement with the EU's internal combustion engine phaseout. Firms in emissions-intense but low-asset-specificity industries are chameleonic. Initially brown, they can turn green when repurposing their low-specificity assets to seek first-mover advantages in emerging green markets. Existing political economy literature understands the business politics of the green transition as a struggle between green and brown industries. I challenge this static and dualistic conceptualization by introducing asset specificity as a second dimension, alongside emissions intensity, to explain businesses' economic and political behavior.