A Comparative Analysis of Relationship Between Innovation and Transport Sector Carbon Emissions in Developed and Developing Mediterranean Countries

Abstract Innovation technologies have been recognized as an efficient solution to alleviate carbon emissions stem from transport sector. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of innovation on carbon emissions stemming from the transportation sector in the Mediterranean countries. Based on the available data, Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey are selected as the 8 developing countries; and Cyprus, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Spain are selected as the 6 developed countries and included in the analysis. Due to data constraints, the analysis period has been determined as 1997-2017 for the developing Mediterranean countries, and 2003-2017 for the developed Mediterranean countries. After determining the long-term relationship with the panel cointegration method, we obtained the long-term coefficients with FMOLS and DOLS methods. The empirical test results indicated that the increments in the level of innovation in developing countries have a negative impact on carbon emissions due to transportation if the innovation results from an increase in patents. However, the trademark increase does not have a statistically significant effect on carbon emissions. In developed countries, it is observed that both the patent application increases and the trademark increases have a positive effect on carbon emissions.