The importance of the stakeholders’ involvement in building indicators. The case of environmental regulation in France

Anne Musson (1, 2)

1 CATT - Centre d'Analyse Théorique et de Traitement des données économiques
2 GRANEM - Groupe de Recherche Angevin en Economie et Management

The purpose of this study is to investigate the usefulness of stakeholders’ involve-ment, through surveys in the construction of indicators. In this paper, we deal withthe case of environmental regulation and its impact on competitiveness. We first un-derline the disregard or lack of even a critical consideration of competitiveness’ in-dicators regarding environmental regulation. We explain that the literature does notjustify this assumption. Focusing on the French case, we then examine the follow-ing question: Is environmental regulation detrimental to employment? Using an ex-ploratory study involving semi-structured interviews with 36 business leaders, we re-veal heterogeneity in entrepreneurs’ perceptions. Far from being a consistently heavyburden for companies, environmental regulation can be a source of opportunity andinnovation, and may lead to job creation. Using empirical data on French industries,we present evidence of non-linear relationships between environmental regulation,FDI outflows, and employment in France over the period 1996-2006. We emphasizethe positive impact of environmental regulation on the level of employment depend-ing on trade liberalization. We conclude on the need to involve stakeholders in theconstruction of indicators.

Keywords: Employment; Environmental Regulation; FDI; Indicators; International Trade; Perception; SME; Sustainable Development; Computer-assisted Textual Analysis

Domains: Economics and Finance; Quantitative Finance [q-fin]

Anne Musson. The importance of the stakeholders’ involvement in building indicators. The case of environmental regulation in France. 2012. ⟨hal-02947023⟩