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Transition towards a green economy in Europe: Innovation and knowledge integration in the renewable energy sector
Abstract
This paper investigates the fragmentation of the EU innovation system in the field of renewable energy sources (RES) by estimating the intensity and direction of knowledge spillovers over the years 1985–2010. We modify the original double exponential knowledge diffusion model proposed by Caballero and Jaffe (1993) to provide information on the degree of integration of EU countries’ RES knowledge bases and to assess how citation patterns changed over time. We show that EU RES inventors have increasingly built “on the shoulders of the other EU giants” intensifying their citations to other member countries and decreasing those to domestic inventors. Furthermore, the EU strengthened its position as source of RES knowledge for the US. Finally, we show that this pattern is peculiar to RES, with other traditional (i.e. fossil-based) energy technologies and other radically new technologies behaving differently. Our results provide suggestive, but convincing evidence that the reduction in fragmentation emerged as a result of the EU support for RES taking mainly the form of demand-pull policies.
... Table 1. . Gunay et al., 2022;Lee et al., 2022;Jin et al., 2022;Zhang, 2022;Santeramo, 2022;Nandy, 2022;Papoutsoglou et al., 2022;Licastro & Bruno, 2021;D'Amato & Korhonen, 2021;Khan et al., 2021;Neimark et al., 2020;Nanayakkara & Colombage, 2021;Taskın et al. ,2020;Khoshnava et al., 2019;Saum et al., 2018;Conti et al.,2018;Dornan et al., 2018;Gainsborough,2017;Loiseau et al., 2016;Droste et al., 2016;Ge & Zhi, 2016;Pahle et al., 2016;Lindman & Söderholm, 2016;Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2016;Caprotti, 2016;Pfeiffer et al., 2016;Maria et al., 2015;Dulal et al., 2015;Sutton et al., 2014;Bauhardt , 2014;Gouvea et al., 2013;Oliveira et al.,2013;Chen et al., 2013). ...
... Classification by years is a very important one, as it shows the progress of research in the areas related to the green economy related areas as exhibited in Table 2 . 5 (Gouvea et al., 2013), (Oliveira et al. ,2013), (Chen et al., 2013), (Davies, 2013), (Misso et al.,2013) 2014 5 (Musango et al., 2014), (Diyar et al., 2014), (Lazzat et al., 2014), (Sutton et al., 2014), (Bauhardt, 2014) 2015 6 (Maria et al., 2015), (Lebedev et al., 2015), (Dulal et al., 2015), (Yi & Liu, 2015), (Rueff et al., 2015), (Gibbs & O'Neill, 2015) 2016 15 , , (Ge & Zhi, 2016), (Pitk€anen et al. (Buseth, 2017), (Holger et al., 2017), (Weber & Cabras ,2017), (Antonioli & Mazzanti, 2017), (Mazzanti & Rizzo, 2017), (Georgeson et al., 2017), (Gainsborough, 2017) 2018 9 ) Swainson & Mahanty, 2018(, (Saum et al., 2018, (Knuth, 2018), (Sinnandavar et al., 2018), (Conti et al. ,2018), (Rosenberg et al., 2018), (Dornan et al., 2018), (Higgs & Hill, 2018 ...
... 26% of publications fall in conceptual research category, 42% of publications fall in analytical research category and 32% of publications fall in empirical research category. (Govindaraju et al., 2022;Knuth, 2018;Milne & Mahanty, 2019;Ansah & Sorooshian, 2019;Bhopal et al., 2021;Swainson & Mahanty, 2018;Rosenberg et al., 2018;Diyar et al., 2014;Lazzat et al., 2014;Georgeson et al., 2017;Santeramo , 2022;Licastro & Bruno, 2021;Neimark et al., 2020;Dornan et al., 2018;Gainsborough, 2017;Droste et al., 2016;Ge & Zhi, 2016;Caprotti, 2016;Maria et al., 2015;Sutton et al., 2014;Bauhardt, 2014;Gouvea et al., 2013) Analytical 38 42% (Weber & Cabras, 2017;Antonioli & Mazzanti, 2017;Mazzanti & Rizzo, 2017;Dmuchowski et al., 2021;Davies, 2013;Ying et al., 2021;Sinnandavar et al. ,2018;Lebedev et al., 2015;Yi & Liu, 2015;Cabernard & Stephan, 2021;Sarwar, 2022;Rathore et al., 2022;Ali et al., 2021;Abid et al., 2021;Nhamo & Chipo, 2020;Solaymani, 2020;Matraeva et al., 2019;Momodu et al., 2019;Luukkanen et al., 2018;Shah & Niles, 2016;Dressler et al., 2016;Amankwah-Amoah & Sarpong, 2016;Rueff et al., 2015;Musango et al., 2014;Attahiru et al., 2019;Jin et al., 2022;Zhang, 2022;Nandy, 2022;Papoutsoglou et al., 2022;D'Amato & Korhonen, 2021;Khan et al., 2021;Khoshnava et al., 2019;Loiseau et al., 2016;Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2016;Pfeiffer et al., 2016;Dulal et al., 2015;Oliveira et al., 2013;Chen et al., 2013) Empirical 29 32% (Macro-Fondevila et al., 2017;Holger et al., 2017;Pitk€anen et al., 2016;Ringel et al., 2016;Gibbs & O'Neill, 2015;Misso et al., 2013;Xu & Gao, 2022;Hou et al., 2022;Zheng et al., 2022;Liu & Dong, 2021;Li et al., 2021;Tian & Feng, 2021;Shuai & Fan, 2020;Zhu et al., 2020;Wu et al., 2020;He et al., 2019;Soomro et al., 2019;Wu et al., 2021;Higgs & Hill, 2018;Buseth, 2017;Law et al., 2016;Gunay et al., 2022;Lee et al., 2022;Nanayakkara & Colombage, 2021;Taskın et al., 2020;Saum et al., 2018;Conti et al., 2018;Pahle et al., 2016;Lindman & Söderholm, 2016) Source: prepared by authors ...
... Similarly, we let µ j E be the multiplier for the evolution of firm j's productivity (equation (13)). Finally, µ K and µ E are the multipliers associated with the distribution of the capital stock across sectors and with the supply of energy (equations (14) and (15)), respectively. ...
... Using (23), we set i = 0.489. 14 We follow GHKT (2014) in our calibration of the environmental damage parameters and the computation of the Pigouvian carbon tax. In particular, we set π = 2.379 × 10 −5 × 10, ϕ = 0.0228, ϕ L = 0.2, and ϕ 0 = 0.393. ...
... Setting E 0 = 14.92, τ f = 0.63 · τ * , and ξ = 0.54, our model matches f 0 = 100 GtC, 17 s 0 = 10.2 percent, and s 0 − s −1 = 2.3 percent. 18 14 For sensitivity, we also set i to levels corresponding to 10 percent and 20 percent slower than the maximum attainable renewable technology growth rate. These slower rates correspond to setting i to 0.449 and 0.408, respectively. ...
We develop a dynamic general equilibrium integrated assessment model that incorporates costs due to new technology adoption in renewable energy as well as externalities associated with carbon emissions and renewable technology spillovers. We use world economy data to calibrate our model and investigate the effects of the technology adoption channel on renewable energy adoption and on the optimal energy transition. Our calibrated model implies several interesting connections between technology adoption costs, the two externalities, policy, and welfare. We investigate the relative effectiveness of two policy instruments-Pigouvian carbon taxes and policies that internalize spillover effects-in isolation as well as in tandem. Our findings suggest that renewable technology adoption costs are of quantitative importance for the energy transition. We find that the two policy instruments are better thought of as complements rather than substitutes.
... Harnessing knowledge and innovative thinking allows the generation of valuable products or technologies to accomplish energy transition objectives for a green economy (Sun et al., 2023). Green innovations, or eco-innovations, that create solutions for optimizing resource efficiency (Guo et al., 2021;Jiang et al., 2020;Shah et al., 2021) while ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources are identified as an essential requirement for greening economic activities (Ma & Zhu, 2022;Conti, Mancusi, and Verdolini, 2018). Accordingly, the literature concerned highlights green innovation (Abid et al., 2022) (Anderson, Ogallo, & Faria, 2022Li, Huang & Zhao, 2022) including technological innovation (Ikram, 2022;Li et al., 2022aLi et al., , 2022bLi et al., , 2022cLiu & Dong, 2022;Zhou et al., 2020) as one of the significant opportunities to promote green economy. ...
... The literature focuses on energy conservation (Amigues & Moreaux, 2019) and biodiversity conservation (Skai et al., 2022). Within this discourse, the adoption of renewable energy sources emerges as a dominant and extensively explored theme Conti et al., 2018;Mohsin et al., 2024;Sarwar, 2022;Kasztelan, 2021;Oliveira et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2022;Taskin, Vardar, & Okan, 2020;Haldar, 2019). This concept has been further elaborated upon in distinct contexts, encompassing domains like clean energy (Solaymani, 2020;Yang et al., 2022), green energy Gibbs & Jensen, 2022), the utilization of zero-emission energy resources (Ali et al., 2021;Baral et al., 2019), and the meticulous management of forests (Baral et al., 2019). ...
Greening the economy is commonly called achieving economic growth while promoting environmental benefits and reducing the ecological footprint of economic activities. The concept focuses on minimizing the negative impact on the environment while maintaining economic and social progress through sustainable development. The greening of the economy is a complex process where a transition to a green economy requires a multi-dimensional approach that involves a wide range of activities, from policymaking to practices, and is affected by various determinants, factors, and evaluation indicators. Even though several scholarly discussions focus on refining the definitional scope of greening and discussing unique opportunities and perceptions of greening economies in different contexts, a broader overall conceptualization developed on the topic is hardly found. Thus, the present chapter aims to develop a comprehensive framework that acts as a ground to conceptualize opportunities and perceptions of greening an economy. Based on a systematic literature review, the opportunities available in the existing literature are synthesized to develop the framework, and the perceptions are identified based on relevant key literature. Accordingly, perceptions of greening can be determined on three broad bases: anticipated outcomes, transformational effects, and operational concerns. Most importantly, it was evident that the opportunities for greening available in existing literature can be identified in six major approaches: government interventions, financing and investment, technological advancements, innovation and knowledge creation, production and distribution, conservation and resilience, and social responsibility. The literature-based conceptualization in the present study would simplify the vague landscape of greening the economy, enabling sensible solutions for integrating the multiple economic, social, and environmental dimensions more successfully.
... A primary focus in addressing climate change is the green transition to sustainable energy sources (Goal 7 in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals -SGDs). According to the United Nations, only 30% of electricity is produced from renewable sources 1 ; thus, there has been huge attention paid to the determinants of green energy transition (e.g., see Conti et al., 2018;Söderholm, 2020;Sulich & Zema, 2023). However, most previous studies have focused on advanced countries (e.g., see Gea-Bermúdez et al., 2021;Sun et al., 2022), which have better infrastructures and resources for green energy transitions. ...
... Gibbs and O'Neill (2015) found that the UK government has stimulated the building sector to adopt green building methods and techniques through legislation in the Code for Sustainable Homes and in building regulations. Conti et al. (2018) concluded that the EU is a central hub for innovation in renewable energy. In a study conducted in Los Angeles (US), Monstadt and Wolff (2015) noted that the city has successfully switched from coal to renewable energies in city infrastructures. ...
Green transition by reducing CO 2 emissions and curtailing the exploitation of natural resources while increasing renewable energy use and generation is one of the most important targets in sustainable development. This study investigated the impacts of women’s empowerment in politics on the green transition in developing countries. We applied a fixed-effects model to the panel data for 131 developing countries from 2000 to 2019. Our findings indicated that higher levels of participation by women in politics are likely to reduce CO 2 emissions and reliance on natural resources. However, there was no statistically significant effect of women’s political empowerment on renewable energy consumption. Women’s political participation enhanced the transition towards sustainable energy sources such as geothermal and wind energy. We also found that the effects of women’s political participation on CO 2 emissions were greater in countries with better political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption, and voice and accountability. This study contributes to the growing literature in feminism and environmentalism on the achievement of sustainable development.
JEL Codes: J16, O13, P48
... Unlike general innovation activities, green innovation aims to achieve harmonious development of the economy and environment with new technology and knowledge. It requires integrating information on resource consumption and manufacturing systems, and it involves integrating knowledge in different technical fields (Conti et al. 2018). It is challenging to carry out green innovation only by relying on experience and accumulating knowledge in a single technical field (Yin et al. 2021). ...
... On the one hand, digitization can accelerate the flow of information between different economic organizations (Müller et al. 2020), reduce internal and external transaction costs (Vatiero 2022), and increase the enthusiasm for green innovation. On the other hand, digital transformation promotes the integration of innovation resources and knowledge (Conti et al. 2018), which is conducive to transforming the traditional closed innovation model into an open and networked model (Michael et al. 2019). Open innovation provides a scenario for the effective allocation of innovation resources and improves the success rate of collaborative innovation (Roh et al. 2021). ...
The green digital revolution has changed the production mode of enterprises. This article explores the green value of digital transformation. The study calculates the digital transformation index and green total factor productivity (EGTFP) index of Chinese enterprises from 2012 to 2021 and uses a panel data model and intermediary effect to conduct empirical tests. The results show that digital transformation has a positive impact of 0.371 units on the EGTFP. This positive effect is proven to be stable after distinguishing between substantive and tactical digital transformation, where the effect of substantive digital transformation increases over time. At the same time, enterprise property rights and location affect the role of digital transformation; moreover, digital transformation performs better when grouping the nonstate-owned enterprises and the eastern region. In addition, energy efficiency, green technology innovation, and environmental responsibility are important intermediaries, as digital transformation can affect EGTFP by improving energy efficiency, promoting green technology innovation, and strengthening environmental responsibility. These research conclusions help evaluate the economic and environmental effects of digital transformation and provide empirical evidence for the high-quality development of enterprises.
... Regarding "renewable energy," Naicker and Thopil (2019) developed a framework to assess the suitability of different renewable energy technologies, including sustainability and knowledge transfer. Conti et al. (2018) studied the intensity of knowledge transfer in the areas of renewable energy innovation in the EU and modified the knowledge diffusion model based on empirical evidence. ...
Purpose
Green knowledge management (GKM) has become a more prominent research topic because of its ability to balance business sustainability, performance and society's well-being. The purpose of this paper is to study how GKM literature evolved before and after two major events: the introduction of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the first conceptualization of GKM. In this paper, GKM is holistically examined following the stages of the knowledge management cycle, a framework for organizational knowledge-processing phases.
Design/methodology/approach
This study performed a bibliometric analysis of 1,274 papers related to GKM from 1995 until January 2024.
Findings
Over the three decades, this research outlined the intertwined relationships between core themes in the domain such as knowledge management in the context of corporate social responsibilities, sustainable development (SD), competitive advantage and so on, and popular theories. GKM evolved from an “industrial and technical view” of knowledge management to a more emerging perspective of a “social process.” Emerging themes were identified such as green innovation, information security or organizational learning sub-themes with key technologies like block-chain, big data analytics and artificial intelligence. Future research can explore themes such as green knowledge integration, green entrepreneurship, green supply chain and green knowledge integration capabilities.
Practical implications
This review offers practitioners a holistic picture of GKM to tackle emerging environmental concerns and increase businesses' competitive advantages. This study provides insights into the future practices of GKM, incorporating emerging technological advancement, to gain green intellectual capital and build dynamic capabilities for sustainability.
Originality/value
To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide a comprehensive picture of the GKM literature, from its earliest forms of corporate social responsibility and SD until the introduction of SDGs, and in combination with the evolution of knowledge management cycle stages.
... In this context, Andres and Mealy highlight the need to use these indicators to achieve maximum efficiency for countries without harming the planet, creating unprecedented opportunities for the growth of a wide range of environmentally friendly products, from water conservation to waste recycling and air pollution monitoring (Andres & Mealy, 2021). Conti et al. (2018) studied the features of the transition to a green economy in the significant innovative countries of the world (USA, Japan, and the EU). The authors concluded that in recent years, the EU has reduced the fragmentation of the innovation system in renewable energy sources, mitigating the effects of climate change and developing renewable energy technologies, compared to the lesser efforts of the USA and Japan in this context. ...
This article aims to study the impact of energy-saving technologies on business processes in the context of green entrepreneurship and innovation, analysing their implementation and interconnection with efficiency, sustainability, and competitiveness. During the article's writing, general scientific methods of cognition were applied, namely the analysis of literary sources, statistical data, methods of systematisation and generalisation, and comparative analysis. For the research, a survey of 24 experts in ecology and energy, including professors and associate professors from NTU “Dnipro Polytechnic” and the Ukrainian State University of Chemical Technology, was conducted. The evaluations were processed by calculating average values using Excel's “AVERAGE” function and correlation analysis using “Pearson's Correlation” in the JASP program. The study showed that implementing energy consumption optimisation (75.25), combined heat and power production (76.67), and energy-efficient materials (78.3) significantly reduces energy costs and enhances the sustainability of production processes. Moreover, the correlation analysis confirms the impact of power generation (r = -0.38; p = 0.067) and replacement of energy equipment (r = -0.3; p = 0.15) on auxiliary business processes, highlighting the importance of these technologies for improving business efficiency. Thus, green entrepreneurship and energy-saving innovations contribute to environmentally friendly production and ensuring long-term competitiveness.
... Secondly, renewable energy source-related technologies have been at the forefront of the EU (Conti et al. 2018). The EU has also carried out policy-oriented actions to deepen its bilateral ties through cooperation with its strategic partners, such as deploying low-carbon technologies, converging relevant carbon markets, and cooperating closely on carbon pricing. ...
Gearing up for green technology innovation (GTI) and natural resources has become even more important in the transition to a zero-emission life, a green economy, and sustainable development goals. This attempt has become a situation that needs to be overpowered much sooner by the European countries, which have encountered challenges in many ways, especially regarding natural resources, energy supply, and the climate crisis. In this vein, the current study follows the novel, robust Method of Moment Quantile-Regression (MM-QR), which successfully yields heterogeneous information structure across quantiles, to examine the determinants of GTI for 15 EU countries over the period of 2003–2018. MM-QR estimation results indicate that the determinants of green technology innovation are heterogeneous across the EU countries. While green growth (GG) has an adverse impact on GTI in middle- and high-GTI countries, the effect of ecological footprint on GTI is positive for countries in the highest-GTI countries. The positive effects of financial development (FD) on GTI are revealed for all countries. Remarkably, environmental taxes have an adverse and positive influence on GTI in the lowest and highest quantile countries, respectively. Finally, renewable energy and greenfield FDI have no effect on GTI. Governments can promote GTI by providing financial resources, in the most immaculate way, to firms that engage in green technology projects, as well as by encouraging these through environmental taxes.
... Addressing the climate emergency requires systemwide net-zero innovation efforts to change how we produce and consume products and services without depending on fossil fuels (Chadha 2011;Losacker, Horbach, and Liefner 2022;Wesseling et al. 2017). Most net-zero innovation efforts, so far, have been aimed at improving the efficiency and the scaling up of renewable energy, such as solar PV and wind power, which has led to exponential growth of renewables over the past decade (Conti et al. 2018;IEA 2020;Rissman et al. 2020). Yet, in most industrial sectors, the challenge to achieve net zero remains considerable. ...
Transition pathways for net zero encompass seemingly insurmoun-table innovation challenges for the scaling of less mature technological solutions such as hydrogen, materials substitution, and electrification as well as societal challenges to increase the market acceptability of these solutions. In this article, we present a conceptual framework which provides a firm-level perspective on net-zero innovation which has four unique characteristics, i.e. it is complex, systemic, urgent, and directional. The framework shows that the input, process, and output constraints that incumbent firms face in the net-zero transition can be tackled through four firm-level innovation levers-i.e. recombinative, collaborative, integrative, and socio-cognitive capabilities-which, in concert, act as enablers for firms to address these net-zero constraints. We conclude the article by outlining the framework's main insights for firms' innovation strategies for net zero and the policy implications. We also propose avenues for future research on net-zero innovation.
... Firms obtain the most frontier technology information through the internet and have increasingly close ties with scientific institutions and universities, which can effectively promote firms' technological innovation (Glavas & Mathews, 2014;Yang & Liu, 2018). Technological innovation makes the input-output ratio of firms more coordinated and improves resource allocation efficiency (Conti et al., 2018;Huang & Chen, 2020;Huang et al., 2021;Stucki, 2019;Voigt et al., 2014). By examining the effect of industrial restructuring and balanced regional development on changes in energy intensity, Lin and Wang (2021) argue that regional technology gaps impede reduction in energy intensity and that technological progress is an important factor in those reductions. ...
China plans to arrive at its peak in the emissions of carbon dioxide and reach carbon neutrality by 2030 and 2060, respectively. What role does internet technology, as a key twenty-first-century technology, play in China's achievement of its two carbon goals? Based on datasets about Chinese prefecture-level cities collected mainly from statistical reports released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), China City Statistical Yearbook, and China Energy Statistical Yearbook in 2006–2019, this paper empirically examines how the development of the internet influencing energy efficiency. This paper uses the policy of “network power nation” strategy and “internet plus” (NPNIP) as a policy impact to construct a continuous difference-in-difference (DID) model for an empirical investigation, and use a mediating effect analysis to test the transmission mechanism involved in industrial structure upgrading, technological innovation, and economic agglomeration. Empirical findings show that energy efficiency is improved by the development of internet. But this result has significant regional heterogeneity. Internet development can significantly reduce energy intensity in the eastern region and mature resource-based cities, but not the central and western regions and other resource-based cities. The mediating effect results show that the internet improves energy efficiency in three ways: upgrading industrial structure, stimulating technological innovation, and economic agglomeration. The empirical findings in this paper lead to many policy recommendation, including strengthening the formation of new infrastructure, deepening the organic integration of the internet across industries, and exploring the legal regulations on internet technology in specific application areas.
... Stock market financing was relatively large in 2007, 2009 and 2010, and the scale of asset financing and their share has increased rapidly. From the perspective of investment composition in In 2011, asset financing accounted for 97.5% of the total investment, equity accounted for 2%, and venture capital/private equity investment accounted for 0.5% (Conti et al., 2018). Chart 11 shows my country's new energy investment and financing situation since 2005. ...
The advent of the era of big data not only enables us to have more information that we can use, but also creates conditions for us to create and disseminate information in a timely manner. This article systematically sorts out and analyzes the overall development and investment of new energy in China, as well as the current new energy incentive policies implemented, and points out the problems in the development of new energy. On this basis, the technical risks, policy risks, and market risks faced by this new energy investment are analyzed, and a risk evaluation model based on DHGF and entropy technology is established. It can help investors identify potential investment opportunities. Investors can use the option of investment projects granted by real options to reduce the impact of uncertainty, thereby increasing the value of the company, and making more scientific and reasonable investment decisions. The experimental results of this article show that since 2009, stock market financing has become a financing channel favored by developers.
... Solar, wind, and geothermal energy are among the best-known renewable energies [2], but they are not the only sources. Other solutions such as those based on biomass have also gained greater importance in recent decades, not only as energy providers but also as waste disposers, with this being a clear exponent of the circular economy paradigm [3,4]. This is so in the case of biogas. ...
This piece of work dealt with the concept of ‘biogas upgrading’ or enrichment of the CH4 contained in a sweetened biogas to proportions and features comparable to those of synthetic natural gas (SNG). For this, the behavior of three lab made catalysts (Ni/Al2O3, Ru/Al2O3, and Ni–Fe/Al2O3) was tested in a CO2 methanation reaction (Sabatier reaction) under different feeding conditions (with and without methane). In the first set of experiments (without methane), the good catalytic behavior of the solids was validated. All three catalysts offered similar and increasing CO2 conversions with increasing temperature (range studied from 250 to 400 °C) at a constant WHSV of 30 × 103 STPmL·gcat−1·h−1. The CH4 selectivity remained close to one in all cases. Considering their total metallic load, the Ru (3.7 wt%)-based catalyst stood out remarkably, with TOF values that reached up to 5.1 min−1, this being six or three times higher, than those obtained with the Ni (10.3 wt%) and Ni–Fe (7.4–2.1 wt%) catalysts, respectively. In the second set (cofeeding methane), and also for the three catalysts, a high correspondence between the conversions (and selectivities) obtained with both types of feeds was observed. This indicated that the addition of CH4 to the system did not severely modify the reaction mechanism, resulting in the possibility of taking advantage of the ‘biogas upgrading’ process by using H2 produced off-peak by electrolysis. In order to maximize the CH4 yield, temperatures in the range from 350–375 °C and a H2:CO2 molar ratio of 6:1 were determined as the optimal reaction conditions.
... Moreover, in contrast to start-ups dedicating themselves to a green focus and green mission, finding a match between green technology opportunities and internal competences and diversifying into green markets is challenging and complex for most established companies (Wicki and Hansen, 2019). Therefore, eco-innovation requires more input from top managers and managerial environmental awareness (Peng and Liu, 2016), organizational internal capabilities (Salim et al., 2019) and more diversified knowledge resources (Conti et al., 2018;Martínez-Ros and Kunapatarawong, 2019). ...
Climate change represents a significant problem to the planet which raises concerns from stakeholder groups about corporate commitment to climate change issues. In this paper, we explore the effect of eco-innovation and climate governance on corporate commitment to climate change. We develop a unique measure for climate change commitment by considering four components, viz. whether a company supports the Sustainable Development Goal 13 on climate action, whether a company is aware that climate change can represent commercial risks or opportunities, whether a company reports Scope 3 CO2 emissions and whether a company sets a target for emission reduction. We measure eco-innovation by using a score collected from the Eikon database that reflects a company's capacity to reduce environmental costs, eco-innovation intensity measured as environmental expenditures over revenues. We also create an index computed as a composite score by totalling five eco-innovation proxies collected from the Eikon database that reflect companies' efforts to reduce environmental impact. Concerning climate governance, we focus on three proxies, namely the existence of an environmental committee, climate incentives and the existence of sustainability reports. Based on a sample of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange for the period of 2014–2020, we find that corporate eco-innovation is positively associated with climate change commitment. We argue that firms that adopt innovative approaches to efficiently control pollution and resource use and reduce their environmental impact are more committed to climate change. We also find that climate governance is positively associated with climate change commitment. We claim that companies that integrate climate change issues in governance can help address climate change risks and opportunities. Our empirical evidence provides recommendations for managers and policymakers to promote the adoption of eco-innovative technologies and integrate climate change issues in governance, which can contribute to corporate commitment to climate change.
... In 2008, UNEP established the Green Economy Initiative and a year later the Global Green New Deal (Merino-Saum et al. 2019). Currently, the concept of green economy is the subject of research in the context of its relationship with sustainable development (Lavrinenko et al. 2019;Aldieri and Vinci 2018;Mikhno et al. 2021), green growth (Hickel and Kallis 2020;Stoknes and Rockström 2018), green finance (Zhang et al. 2021), technologies and innovations, that is the transition to a lowemission and ultimately zero-emission economy (Yumei et al. 2022;Kasayanond 2019;Ying et al. 2021;Zhao et al. 2019;Conti et al. 2018;Liu and Dong 2021). ...
In the twenty-first century, energy resources and production are the basis for efficient operation of the world’s economies. This is why development of the energy sector has become such an important political, economic and social aspect of every country. It guarantees economic development of the country, as well as maintaining or even enhancing the population’s standard of living. This process is accompanied by growing awareness of limited resource availability and the environmental impact of predatory resource management. The use of green energy in the economy is currently one of the major topics of political and social debate, both at the global level and in individual integration formations or countries. The outcome of this debate seems to be an inevitable drift towards climate neutrality. The chapter outlines evolution of policies on the use of energy resources and the major factors influencing the development of green transition policies.
... Furthermore, accepting social responsibility is one of the main paths by which enterprises can realize long-term and intrinsic value, which cannot be measured by short-term financial performance. For some enterprises, especially those from innovative and knowledge-based industries, strengthening green innovation is vital to realizing corporate social responsibility [85]. Even for companies outside of these industries, undertaking corporate social responsibility could also be seen as an indication of sustainable development, thus bringing the financial benefits described above. ...
In recent years, there has been an increase in awareness of the need for green innovation to attain sustainable development. Green innovation has been proven to be one of the ways to achieve sustainable development. Most research on determinants of green business innovation has focused on either personal or regulatory factors. This paper examines whether and how the personal factors of local officials are rarely concerned. While in the context of accelerating the construction of an ecological civilization, China has implemented a series of reforms, including those that concern the achievement of environmental objectives while assessing the performance and supervising the responsibility of officials. As these reforms have been designed on a personalized basis, this paper adopts a micro perspective to measure the political incentives of key local officials. Taking A-share-listed companies as our sample, our empirical investigation shows that the political motivations of key local officials can promote regional enterprises’ green innovation, and the government–enterprise relationship along with the corporate social responsibility of enterprises can strengthen this effect. Our conclusions prove that the reforms mentioned above have been operating effectively, and political incentives have improved local officials’ supervision of regional enterprises’ energy conservation and pollution reduction, which provides new evidence for the “promotion competition” of local officials during the transitional period in China.
... Traditionally, biogas solutions were primarily connected to waste and wastewater treatment [6], but they have increasingly become a part of the efforts of developing alternative renewable energy to mitigate climate change [7][8][9][10]. Concerns for sustainable agriculture [11,12], energy security, rural development and unemployment have also played an important role in motivating the promotion of biogas solutions in many countries [13,14]. This has contributed to the fast and steady growth of biogas production throughout Europe in recent decades. ...
Sweden aims to increase biogas production from anaerobic digestion (AD) from 2 to 7 TWh/year until 2030. This paper investigates the requirements, challenges and implications of such a development through qualitative and quantitative assessment of three scenarios. Seven key elements—national policies and policy instruments, regional policies and policy instruments, mobilization of feedstock, infrastructure for feedstock and gas, mobilization of actors, new production facilities, and stable and increasing demand—were defined for the scenario construction and were also used to structure the comparative analysis. Quantitatively, increasing the biogas production from 2 to 7 TWh is estimated to require up to 5 times larger digester volume and up to 12 times more AD plants, meanwhile producing 6–8 times more biofertilizers. While a centralized production structure would be more efficient, a decentralized structure with small biogas plants would facilitate the logistics of agricultural substrates and biofertilizers. New production capacity could be incentivized through new and increased production subsidies, as well as an increased demand for renewable energy. Regardless of how the goal is to be achieved, it will require collective efforts from both public and private actors to overcome the many challenges on the way.
... Even though the influence of economic activities on the CO 2 emissions has been identified, the impact of a higher global uncertainty on these emissions is not clearindeed, an increase of the volatility of all indicators of global uncertainty have a negative impact on the economic activities (Colombo, 2013), but this context might then reduce CO 2 emissions. However, this negative impact could also lead to another environmental problem: the decreases in investment and output could slow down all initiatives aiming at promoting renewable energy consumption (Conti et al., 2018;Sonnenschein, 2016) or all technological upgrades to reduce energy intensity and emissions intensity. In other words, the negative impact of a higher global uncertainty on the environment is not clearthe aim of this article is to investigate further this matter. ...
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the influences of global uncertainty indicators volatility on the domestic socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability in a sample of 54 developing countries.
Design/methodology/approach
The two-step system generalized method of moments estimator is recruited to deal with autoregression and endogeneity matter in our dynamic panel data. Seven different global uncertainty indicators (US trade uncertainty; world trade uncertainty; economic policy uncertainty; world commodities and oil prices; the geopolitical risk index and the world uncertainty index) have been mobilized and compared for their empirical impact on the economic (growth and GDP), social (the misery index and income inequality) and environmental (CO 2 emissions) vulnerabilities of nations.
Findings
Our empirical estimations suggest that the socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability cannot be solved through the same pattern: all decrease of a particular aspect will necessarily have a cost and an opposite influence on at least one of the other aspects of the nations' vulnerability.
Originality/value
The originality of this article is to combine these three dimensions of vulnerability in the same investigation. To our knowledge, our research is one of the few providing a joint analysis of the influence of global uncertainty on the economic and socioenvironmental countries' vulnerabilities – given the fact social, economic and environmental aspects are at the heart of the UN sustainable goals, our study can be seen as an investigation of the nations' capabilities to work proactively on meaningful sustainable goals in an increasingly uncertain world.
... Additionally, the need for effective demand side energy management considering the right amount (magnitude), time (in relation to investing in new energy supply systems) and type (coordinated with other systems) is also underscored (Shafiei et al., 2016;Say et al., 2018). As mentioned by Conti et al. (2018), "demand-pull" and "technology-push" measures have been seen to be extremely important. Hvelplund and Djørup (2017) emphasize the importance of proper attention to institutional and technical reforms including taxation systems to correspond to the desired RET. ...
Issues of environmental degradation, finite quantity and uneven spatial distribution of fuels in nature, and growing demand accentuated by volatility of oil prices have led to the global clean renewable energy transition (RET). With an objective of examining the current knowledge-stock on RET, we reviewed 248 journal publications pooled from three databases (ScienceDirect, Web of Science and Scopus) using a Systematic Literature Review method. This study does not focus on the specifications of a particular energy technology or regress relations among a limited set of variables. Rather, the key contribution is the critical assessment of the factors that encourage and those that hinder the transition process to provide a wider perspective through seven broad lenses: technological, investment, market, environmental, government and institutional, policy and social. Research, development and implementation of technology is a direct outcome of policy investment. Developed countries are leading the RET research while the global south is far behind. Most of the studies were found to be donor-driven which faced a serious risk of being counter-welcomed in different settings of the world without compromising the objectives of the transition. A strong international collaboration among the rich and poor countries is urgently felt necessary to foster mutual benefits. Research, planning and implementation of the RET would be highly effective and sustainable through a participatory bottom-up approach promoting local technology instead of imposed expensive imported ones. The need for “demand-pull” and “technology-push” policy instruments is stringent for successful transition. We conclude that there is a unanimous agreement among all the studies on the future prospects of renewable energy in the electricity sector; however, some skepticism still exists regarding other high energy demanding areas. Our review recommends updating existing and designing new robust policy mixes to guide the modality and pace of the RET, adhering to local specificities.
... Although patent classifications for energy related technologies are available (See León et al. 2018), there is not a distinct classification as energy sector in patent classification methods of WIPO, EPO, USPTO, and other patenting authorities. So that, studies using knowledge production function modeling specifies technology classification such as renewables, fossil fuel, and storage technology, etc. (Wangler 2013;Conti et al. 2018;Plank and Doblinger 2018). Only a small number of studies use aggregate R&D expenditure/investment as dependent variable to analyze total energy sector R&D activities. ...
Understanding the factors affecting R&D trends in the energy sector has a key role in overcoming environmental concerns such as combating climate change, as well as other economic and political problems related to energy. Based on such concerns, this study aims to analyze fundamental factors that determine the energy R&D trends of 29 International Energy Agency (IEA) countries. The data set, consisting of annual indicators for the period 1990–2015, is analyzed with the Driscoll-Kraay panel data estimator. Empirical findings for overall sample show that efficiency, import dependency, and the share of renewable energy use are positively related with R&D expenditure in energy sector. CO2 intensity is found to be statistically insignificant. When countries are grouped considering their energy composition structures, the dynamics of energy R&D expenditures differ between groups. In overall evaluation, our findings illustrate efficiency and dependency to have greater priority compared to environmental dynamics on energy R&D expenditures for IEA countries during the period.
... Our findings are also consistent with human capital and energy being substitutes in production in the long-run, particularly as economies transition to services, so investment in human capital has the potential to offset reductions in energy consumption in maintaining economic growth (Akram et al., 2020). This is consistent with the transition from fossil fuels to renewables occurring in parallel with the transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the two reinforcing each other with feedback effects from the knowledge economy reinforcing energy transition (Conti et al., 2018). ...
We examine the relationship between human capital and energy consumption in the United Kingdom employing time series data dating back to the mid-sixteenth century. We first employ traditional parametric techniques, such as cointegration tests and autoregressive distributed lag models, to examine the long and short-run effects. The findings suggest that there is a negative relationship between total human capital and energy consumption in the long run, with most estimates suggesting that an additional year of schooling reduces energy consumption in the range 15-20%. Given that such a long time series contains non-linearities and structural shifts in the data, we investigate the non-linear properties and find a long-run asymmetric relationship between human capital and energy consumption. We also relax the functional form assumptions and utilise local linear non-parametric regression. The results show a time-varying non-parametric link between human capital and energy consumption, although, consistent with the linear long run estimates, the relationship continues to be negative.
... Conti and others studies the intensity and direction of knowledge flows in renewable energy sources (RES) technologies over the period 1985 to 2010 across the US, Japan and the EU15. They found a fragmented EU innovation space until the beginning of the century, but that fragmentation shrank in parallel and due to increasing stronger EU environmental commitments during the last 20 years, and this went also in with a demand-pull policies (Conti, Mancusi, Sanna-Randaccio, Sestini, and Verdolini, 2018). Shabunina, Shchelkina and Rodionov have worked on the same idea as we do to link environmental performance to knowledge and innovation, but the North-West Federal District (NWFD) of the Russian Federation (RF) for the period of 2000-2014. ...
Our ecosystem and mainly our natural resources represent a vital ecological portfolio. Environment is good for business at a time business is not keen to invest in compliance measures. Sustaining the environment is costly and adds additional burden. The burden not only financial, it is mainly technical and managerial. Producing renewable energy and maintaining freshwater resource, reducing electricity production and emissions depend also on R & D practices such as trademark and patent applications. This also needs engineers, technicians, scientists and human capabilities with continuous knowledge and intellectual capital. The main research hypothesis has tested the effect of environmental protection and compliance on the R&D in intellectual capital creation. Environmental reactions are measured by “renewable internal freshwater resources”, “electricity production from renewable sources”, “access to electricity” and “alternative and nuclear energy”, while R & D practices are measured by “trademark applications”, “technicians in R&D” and “patent applications”. Research hypotheses has been tested using panel regression analysis according to GMM technique. Using data of 94 countries during the period from 2001 to 2019, findings show that there are significant effect of “trademark applications” on “renewable internal freshwater resources” and of “technicians in R&D” on each of “electricity production from renewable sources” “access to electricity” and “alternative and nuclear energy”. Besides, “patent applications” seems to have significant effect on “alternative and nuclear energy”. Results have found that countries that have made environmental improvements are those who have invested in intellectual capital and made significant steps in improving their environmental R&D Capabilities.
... In recent years, renewable energy technologies (RETs) have been considered as a solution to diversify energy supply and reduce dependence on fossil fuels to reduce GHG emissions as well as a way to create new jobs (Conti et al., 2018). Public access to renewable energy is also one of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals for transforming the world and creating an equal, fair and secure world for the inhabitants of planet Earth (Fartash et al., 2021). ...
Purpose-This paper aims at identifying knowledge creation and diffusion challenges and explaining their causal relationship in renewable energy technologies in Iran. Design/methodology/approach-By reviewing the literature of renewable energy technologies development, key knowledge creation, and diffusion challenges are extracted. Then, the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method is used to investigate the cause-effect relationships as well as the influence structure of aforementioned challenges in Iran. Findings-The results indicate that lack of specialized higher education and research institutions (C4), limited international product development and technological cooperation with international pioneer firms (C8), insufficient international research interactions of institutions and academic research centres (C6), tight and temporary subsidies to domestic institutes (C13), limited and non-systematic government grants (C14), insufficient tax incentives with low impact on investment (C12), weak enforcement of intellectual property rights (C5), low number and relatively poor performance of NGOs and scientific and trade associations (C19) and the limited number of conferences, workshops, meetings and specialized journals (C15) are among the most instrumental challenges of knowledge creation and diffusion of renewable energy technologies development in Iran. Originality/value-This paper identifies knowledge creation and diffusion challenges of renewable energy technologies development in Iran, which is applicable for other developing countries. It also analyses the interrelationship and causal effect between challenges which is a neglected issue in the literature and has beneficial theoretical and policy implications.
... The insertion of renewable energy sources into the global energy matrix is an important challenge for managers and international authorities (Perroni et al., 2016). The lack of energy sources aside from fossil fuels has raised concerns about guaranteed energy supplies and has made searching for new technologies and alternative energy sources essential (Conti et al., 2018;Schmidt and Sewerin, 2019). Conventional energy sources from fossil fuels such as natural gas, oil and coal are closely associated with industrial and economic development. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationships between socioeconomic development, renewable energy and the innovative process by providing: a descriptive analysis; a co-occurrence analysis of terms, thematic mapping and conceptual structure; and the typology of the textual corpus.
Design/methodology/approach
To analyze the relationship between “renewable energies, socioeconomic development and the innovative process,” it is necessary to build a theoretical foundation that contains the relevant scientific studies and reflects the current state of the art on the subject. For this, this study developed a systematic literature review (SLR) using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses research protocol to answer the relationship on the theme.
Findings
Research shows a global understanding of the need to invest in developing studies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve economic growth. The main contributions lie in providing a typology of the state of the art, identifying the joint relationships between themes, insights into the key themes and indicating themes that must be developed. This study may also support future empirical studies as it provides a theoretical foundation for formulating hypotheses, which can be tested through qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Originality/value
The innovative character consists of addressing a shortage of SLRs on this theme. Thus, this paper fills this gap by providing a theoretical foundation for future scientific and academic knowledge generation. Furthermore, regarding the interdisciplinary aspects of this research as contributions, this paper presented different approaches and theoretical perspectives.
... Over the last decades, the interest for biogas has grown rapidly in many countries [8]. Motivated by concerns over climate change, unemployment, rural development and energy import dependence, biogas and other biofuels have been increasingly promoted all over Europe (see, e.g., [9,10]). The number of biogas initiatives has increased and diversified. ...
The biogas sector has expanded quickly in Europe, but the development has been slowing down and the biogas production is still far below the estimated potential. This paper compares and analyzes the relations between the biogas development and the national policy frameworks for biogas solutions in eight European countries. The policy frameworks are compared by applying a generic model for biogas policies, comprising five dimensions: type of policy; administrative area; administrative level; targeted part of the value chain; and continuity and change over time. The studied countries show examples of both increasing and stagnating biogas production, all of which can be associated with changes in national policy frameworks. Many different policy tools—particularly economic instruments—have proven successful for stimulating biogas production, but changing a well-functioning framework risks impeding the development. The most important attributes of economic instruments for biogas are therefore not their form and their target in the value chain, but rather predictability and relevance for the targeted actors. However, targeting specific parts of the value chain can be required to integrate all the benefits of biogas solutions, such as agricultural methane emissions reduction. Moreover, it can be a challenge to design policies and policy instruments that are both effective and sustainable over time, without needs for modifications or adjustments. Finally, biogas policies and policy instruments that are effective in one country would not necessarily lead to the same outcome in another country, as they are dependent on the broader context and policy and economic framework.
... Table 3 shows the econometric results of solar photovoltaic technology using new combinations introduced by inventors from United States. We divide our sample into pre-2000 and post-2000 subsamples following Conti et al. (2018). They observed the acceleration in EU renewable energy patenting at the turn of the century. ...
How we can accelerate the diffusion of new clean energy technologies worldwide is a highly relevant topic for energy and climate policies, as well as industrial policies. We trace the time lag between the introduction and the diffusion of breakthroughs in solar photovoltaic technology and wind power technology. Our results show that both domestic knowledge base and organizational proximity to the country introducing breakthroughs, help latecomer countries catch up by actively innovating in these technologies on their own. Moreover, we find that there are more opportunities for latecomer countries with stronger domestic knowledge base to catch up in solar photovoltaic technology than wind power technology. The results of this paper provide systematic evidence of the technology-sensitive catching-up process in the clean energy technological paradigm.
... Our analysis thus provides suggestive evidence that the commitment of the EU to renewable energy development and deployment supported and promoted stronger integration of the innovation space. As such, climate mitigation comes as an opportunity to strengthen the EU position in the strategic field of RES, eventually resulting in sustainable growth (Conti et al., 2018) Considering the global ecological challenge and the European response to it, it was natural that European universities would play a decisive role in transforming the challenge into an opportunity. Historically, European universities played an essential role in the development of the modern world and the supremacy of the West (Simons, 2006). ...
Sustainability is an increasingly important subject matter for universities, which are faced with the dilemma to either help shape the current debate or risk becoming obsolete in the future. This research presents an overview of the main factors, shaping the future of universities, from climate changes and "going green" trends to entrepreneurship initiatives that can provide real economic growth and development. In this fourth industrial revolution, technological advances profoundly impact higher education initiatives; traditional universities must find creative solutions to thrive and develop in this era. The solution to sustainability that the authors of this chapter propose is to borrow key strategies from tech companies, which could be replicated at a university level. Among the most critical factors in the quest for sustainability is the continuous investment in faculty development, which can result in a culture of entrepreneurship and ecology.
This Chapter provides readers with an overview of empirical research on corporate decision-making about the implementation of ecologically innovative practices (i.e., corporate eco-innovation). Through a systematic review of 100 academic publications, we shed light on the past and present state of corporate eco-innovation research. We initially address the divergency of the terminologies and definitions for eco-innovations in business contexts and its measurements used in quantitative regression analysis. Despite the paucity of prior research on this subject, we aim to provide an overview of the influential factors, driving forces, and motivations that underpin firms’ eco-innovation decision-making, as well as its impact on corporate structure and processes, organizing strategies, and operational efficiency and other performance. We conclude with some suggestions for future research on corporate eco-innovation.
This chapter presents evidence regarding the association between eco-innovative actions and the sustainability performance of small businesses in Nigeria, which is Africa’s largest economy. It also examines the extent to which small businesses implement eco-innovative actions. Based on a survey of 480 owners-managers, we identify a significant relationship between eco-innovative actions and the sustainability performance of Nigerian small businesses. These eco-innovative actions are found to enhance the resources needed for sustainability performance. Therefore, it is recommended that businesses incorporate eco-innovative actions and sustainability practices into their strategic vision. This alignment with SDG13 is critical and may offer advantages for the environment.
Technology spillovers, understood as knowledge flows across technology domains, are an important mechanism for innovation, as progress in one technology area can lead to unexpected benefits in other technology areas. Despite the importance of technology spillovers in theories of recombinant innovation, significant gaps remain in our understanding of how spillovers across knowledge domains occur, what factors enable or affect spillovers, or how much consideration should be given to technology spillovers in research and innovation policy and management. In this paper, we develop and demonstrate novel conceptual and methodological tools to address these knowledge gaps. Specifically, we introduce a conceptual framework that views technology spillovers as a dynamic process of micro-level knowledge transfer across technological domains that drives recombinant innovation in a knowledge-receiving domain. We use this framework to develop a process-tracing methodology for identifying and analyzing individual micro-level technology spillovers. We demonstrate the application of our framework and methodology in a case of three important innovations in crystalline silicon solar photovoltaics by reconstructing a detailed history of how technology spillovers have played a critical role in enabling and driving these three innovations over time. We show how our approach generates important insights relevant to public policy and R&D management that aim to harness spillovers for accelerating innovation.
This book considers the global response on governance after the pandemic while sociologically addressing the effects of COVID-19 on life and work experience. It presents the effects of COVID-19 on global and local labour markets, the development of digitisation and technology, of work health, and on the
environment with respect to global warming and climate change. Linking COVID-19 to the progress of globalisation, the book considers the spread of the pandemic and its management as a response to neoliberalism. The book analyses national and international governance models for tackling future outcomes of emerging global issues such as technology, green industry and
environment that may inform future management of global crises. As such, it will be of interest to scholars in the field of Global Studies, Governance, International Relations, Political Science, Complexity Studies, Environment Studies, Sociology,
Disaster Management and Occupational Health.
Allocating scarce public funds to clean R&D might mean forfeiting higher economic gains from supporting other sectors, creating a tradeoff between economic and environmental goals. Our analysis of knowledge spillovers – the primary pathway for growth via innovation policy – suggests no such tradeoff: subsidy return rates are higher in Clean than in most other fields. But designing clean innovation policy based on national interests alone is inefficient, with EU-wide coordination boosting EU returns by 25% and global coordination raising worldwide returns by over 60%. Our analysis of cross-border knowledge spillovers suggests the EU could significantly benefit from US clean-focused policies like the Inflation Reduction Act.
This study examines the impact of barriers to knowledge diffusion in energy technologies in 29 countries from 1990 to 2015, distinguishing between efficient fossil-based generation and mature renewable options, namely wind and solar. We show that knowledge flows are higher in countries with similar technological profiles, particularly for mature renewables. The study finds that international knowledge spillovers have increased in intensity for wind and solar, while the opposite is true for fossil-based technologies. That means that foreign knowledge has increasingly informed domestic investors and points to the key role that knowledge flows from abroad had in promoting innovation in low-carbon technology options. Integrated assessment models should account for the role international knowledge spillovers play in the generation of new knowledge and in contributing to rapid decrease in costs.
This research aims to determine the prime energy security criteria and indices in the case of India. The energy security indices are determined through literature review and energy portfolio experts. This study explores five new perspectives about India's energy security; energy flow risk, operational risk, financial risk, strategic risk, and environmental risk. The study uses integrated methodology hesitant fuzzy set and regret set theory for energy security indices evaluation and selection. This integrated approach emphasizes the psychological characteristics of experts and the variation in decision making. The study reveals that Government has to focus on alternative fuel selection (wj = 0.1077), geopolitical risk (wj = 0.1042), and less capacity of strategic reservoir (wj = 0.0987). Further, the results show that for long term energy security India have to focus on the strategic risk; policies formulation for new fuels, more strategic reservoir, and diversity their energy sources.
With the transition of the global economy toward a green economy, it is important to analyze the elements that can either support or impede this transformation. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the potential of the green economy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries by analyzing the correlation between economic and environmental factors. The objective of this study is to explore the potential of the green economy in MENA countries by analyzing key factors such as access to clean fuel, GDP, and CO 2 emissions. The study aims to distinguish between long‐ and short‐term effects, assess the presence of a long‐run relationship or co‐integration between the parameter estimates, and evaluate the progress of MENA countries toward a green economy based on the impact of economic, and environmental factors. Using quarterly and seasonally adjusted data from 2000 to 2018, the auto‐regressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique was employed to examine the co‐integration of the factors in the long and short terms. Multiple cointegration techniques were also used to determine the feasibility of a green economy by analyzing the relationship between access to clean fuel for technology and cooking, GDP, and CO 2 emissions. The study's findings indicate a clear long‐ and short‐term relationship between the analyzed factors, as confirmed by the error correction model (ECM) which suggests that the variables are cointegrated and potentially relevant. Additionally, the result of the autoregressive distributed lag bound test shows that the green economy variables, GDP, CO 2 emissions, and access to clean fuel, are cointegrated in the long‐term.
European regions are currently implementing smart specialisation strategies trough the capitalisation of their knowledge assets to drive innovation in promising sectors, fields or technologies. However, there is a lack of understanding behind the knowledge development process of smart specialisation strategies targeting renewable energy technologies. Especially so in the creation of complex knowledge, which is more difficult to replicate and it therefore provides a greater competitive advantage. This research aims to fill that gap by exploring the patterns of complex knowledge production in six renewable energy technologies. By making use of quantitative methods and building upon the theoretical foundations of Evolutionary Economic Geography and the Smart Specialisation literature, this research attempts to test the relationship between the ability of a region to create complex knowledge and four mechanisms of path and place dependency linked to the knowledge creation process. Scientific publications cited in patents are used as an indicator for regional knowledge production to capture the role that scientific knowledge plays in technological development. A set of quantitative analyses revealed that scientific
relatedness is the most important driver for the creation of complex knowledge. That is the extent to which a region’s scientific profile is related to the knowledge base of a given technology. Contrary to what was expected, the results showed that the infrastructural and technological carbon lock-in of fossil fuel technologies either constrain or encourage the creation of complex knowledge. Moreover, it was
found that the ability of a region to create complex knowledge does not depend on its ability to accumulate scientific knowledge, solar PV technology being the exception, possibly due to the high level of analyticity of its knowledge base. Unexpectedly, access to complementary knowledge trough interregional linkages does not have a strong impact on the creation of complex knowledge. Instead, it is possible that complex knowledge is more likely to be geographically bounded. This is supported by the spatial distribution of complexity scores, in which high-score regions tend to cluster next to each other. To conclude, the findings of this research suggest that European regions implementing smart specialisation strategies targeting renewable energy technologies are more likely to be successful when
they diversify into scientific or technological fields that are related to their scientific profile, regardless of their capacity to contribute to the knowledge stock or the knowledge and specialised skills accumulated in fossil fuel technologies.
Financing the green transformation constitutes another vital area for countries around the world. Many governments are allocating ever-increasing funds for financing green technologies and the decarbonisation of their economies. By 2050 the European Union is supposed to become the world’s first bloc of climate-neutral countries. This requires substantial investment on the part of the EU and the domestic public sector, as well as the private sector. The investment plan for the European Green Deal presented last year aims at a significant increase in the activity of EU countries in this area. The chapter presents the most relevant possibilities of financing the green transformation, also providing examples of similar regulations introduced in EU member states.
We suggest two boundary conditions for the positive role of patent protection in attracting inward foreign R&D investments. Patent protection is less effective in limiting the leakage of nonpatented knowledge through interfirm mobility of employees, and a gradual strengthening of patent protection worldwide diminishes its effect as countries get closer to the intellectual property rights (IPR) frontier. We provide evidence in an empirical analysis of 3393 multinational firms’ R&D location choices for 8015 greenfield R&D investments in 105 (potential) host countries, during 2003–2014. The relationship between R&D investment location choices and IPR protection is subject to declining marginal effects and negatively moderated by inventor mobility.
Several policies promote the adoption of renewable electricity among incumbent utilities. Yet, the scale of consumer adoption appears limited by accessibility. The underlying factors inhibiting accessibility are exacerbated with low- and middle-income (LMI) consumers who not only have substantial income disparities but also make up a significant proportion of a utility's customer base. While prior research demonstrates that policies can help in scaling participation hurdles in solar, the extent to which utility efforts help to unlock the market potential for LMI participation is not evident. We contribute to distributional effects of environmental policy by evaluating utilities' efforts to provide consumer access to clean energy. Reviewing solar initiatives of utilities, as reflected on their website enhanced with secondary archival data, we find that the role of accessibility particularly for LMI households, either through community solar projects (CSP) or rooftop solar installations, is shaped by policy and complementary factors. Such factors include ownership models either through subscriptions or rooftop panel ownership, income disparity, the regulatory regime, and a combination of these factors. Our findings further suggest that utilities are more likely to support LMI accessibility to their CSPs in the presence of policy intervention such as solar incentives and retail choice markets when their customer base is significantly LMI households. In fact, LMI access by subscription is stronger in retail choice markets, whereas access to rooftop solar panels is an increasing function of income.
The locus of knowledge externalities and the cost of knowledge. Regional Studies. This paper provides an extended Crépon–Duguet–Mairesse (CDM) approach to analyse jointly the simultaneous effects of knowledge spillovers in the knowledge-generation and technology production functions. It introduces the distinction between imitation and knowledge externalities and articulates the hypothesis that spillovers yield their effects via three well-distinct mechanisms: (1) knowledge externalities that exert positive and direct effects on the knowledge-production function and (2) indirect effects on the technology-production function via their effects on the cost of knowledge; and (3) imitation externalities that exert direct and positive effects on productivity in the technology-production function. We test our hypotheses on a large panel of Italian companies distributed in NUTS-2 regions for the period 2005–09. The econometric analysis consists of a model comprising a system of equations that test the simultaneous role of spillovers in the knowledge-generation and technology-production functions with the inclusion of endogenous knowledge costs. The results confirm that the access to external knowledge – as an input in the knowledge-generation function – plays a key role in increasing the knowledge output and – as an input in the technology-production function – has positive indirect and direct effects on the productivity of firms.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the presence of international knowledge spillovers in the wind power sector. Specifically, the paper investigates whether successful invention efforts in one country, measured by way of granted wind power patent counts, have had positive effects on the neighboring countries’ abilities to generate patents of the same category. Data on the number of patents granted at the European Patent Office during the period 1978–2008 are used for the eight national technological leaders in the western European wind power sector. The few comprehensive wind power studies that exist have only found limited evidence of international knowledge spillovers. However, in this paper, we find that international spillovers are statistically significant determinants of a country’s wind power patenting outcomes. Geographical distance is also taken into consideration, and the knowledge spillover effects are shown to become stronger with decreases in this distance. The results should have important policy implications, for example, for a national government when it comes to applying an investment strategy in wind power or, alternatively, free-riding on other countries’ invention efforts.
Technology transfer is an important channel of technological change and sustainable development for countries with less innovative ability than technological leaders. This paper studies whether domestic environmental policies affect the inward technology transfer of cleaner innovation from abroad. We focus specifically on the power sector, for its important role in the decarbonization process, by looking at zero-carbon (renewable) and carbon-saving (efficient fossil) technologies for energy production. Using data on cross-country patent applications, we provide evidence that environmental policy contributes to attracting foreign cleaner technology options to OECD markets but not to non-OECD markets. We show that this is due to the nature of the implemented policy instruments. Market-based approaches positively impact technology transfer to both OECD and non-OECD economies, while non-market based approaches have at best only a weak effect in OECD countries. Domestic environmental policies may provide too weak a signal for foreign innovators in countries off the technological frontier. This calls for a strengthening of policy incentives for technology transfer in light of pressing climate change objectives.
This book highlights the interaction between science and politics and between research in economics and European Union policy-making. It focuses on the use of Quantitative tools, Top-down and Bottom-up models in up-stream European decision-making process through five EU policy case studies: energy taxation, climate change, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and internalisation of external costs. The author reveals how the European Commission grounds part of its legitimacy on the «objectivity of the figures» and on its «technical charisma». Faced by strong stakeholders, an elected European Parliament and a Council representing the national interests, the Commission defends the credibility of its policy initiatives (e.g. energy and environment targets, new market mechanisms) by scientific reports. Through an in-depth analysis of the preparatory legislation (Commission White Papers, Communications, Directive Proposals, Staff Working Documents, Impact Assessments), the author explains how the European Commission justifies economically and supports politically its initiatives. This book offers a new way of understanding the EU decision-making process with special reference to the energy and environment fields.
The paper offers sector-based qualitative evidence concerning the climate and energy policy effects on eco innovations in the EU. Through interviews with industry associations of Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) sectors, it analyses the extent to which past innovation adoption dynamics were influenced by policy and regulatory levers, by looking at the single and interaction effects of policies. As could be expected from the neo-Schumpeterian theory on innovation, differences emerge across sectors. Policies appear to be relevant in some sectors, namely energy, coke and refinery, and paper, but energy costs considerations dominate over the potential effects of CO2 targeted policies. Overall, technological and organisational levels are both relevant: organisational innovations emerged as important in most sectors, often operating as a leading force in technological development. We expect this 'complementarity' to play a crucial role in the future path towards 2030 and 2050 aims, whose achievement is possible only by integrating technological, organisational and behavioural innovations.
Cohen and Levinthal (1989) introduced the notion of absorptive capacity and demonstrated that knowledge spillovers can induce complementarities in R&D efforts. We show that this idea has rich implications when analysing important aspects of the growth process such as cross-country convergence and divergence, the international co-ordination of climate change policies, and the role of openness in the production of ideas. We also show that the notion of absorptive capacity sets an agenda for new empirical and theoretical analyses of the role of R&D spillovers in innovation and growth.
This paper compared and contrasted patent counts by examining the inventor country and the assignee country. An empirical analysis of the patent data revealed how assignment principles (i.e. by the inventor country and by the assignee county) and counting methods (i.e. whole counts, first country and fractional counts) generate different results. Quadrant diagrams were utilised to present the patent data of the 33 selected countries. When countries had similar patent counts by inventor country with patent counts by assignee country, all the countries allocated along the diagonal line in the quadrant diagram were developed countries. When countries had more patent counts by inventor than by assignee, developed countries were more likely to sit in the right upper section of the quadrant diagram, while more developing countries were situated in the left lower section. Countries with higher patent counts by assignee than by inventor were more likely to be tax havens. A significant contribution of this paper resides in the recommendation that patent counts be analysed using both the inventor country and the assignee country at the same time if meaningful implications from patent statistics are to be obtained.
This paper examines the effect of environmental policies on technological innovation in the specific case of renewable energy.
The analysis is conducted using patent data on a panel of 25 countries over the period 1978–2003. We find that public policy
plays a significant role in determining patent applications. Different types of policy instruments are effective for different
renewable energy sources. Broad-based policies, such as tradable energy certificates, are more likely to induce innovation
on technologies that are close to competitive with fossil fuels. More targeted subsidies, such as feed-in tariffs, are needed
to induce innovation on more costly energy technologies, such as solar power.
Market failures associated with environmental pollution interact with market failures associated with the innovation and diffusion of new technologies. These combined market failures provide a strong rationale for a portfolio of public policies that foster emissions reduction as well as the development and adoption of environmentally beneficial technology. Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the rate and direction of technological advance is influenced by market and regulatory incentives, and can be cost-effectively harnessed through the use of economic-incentive based policy. In the presence of weak or nonexistent environmental policies, investments in the development and diffusion of new environmentally beneficial technologies are very likely to be less than would be socially desirable. Positive knowledge and adoption spillovers and information problems can further weaken innovation incentives. While environmental technology policy is fraught with difficulties, a long-term view suggests a strategy of experimenting with policy approaches and systematically evaluating their success.
This paper reports a search for general tendencies among models that look at spillovers in innovative activities. A number of inferences are detailed that appeared in a wide class of settings, including stochastic racing models, (static) stochastic models, dynamic and static commitment models, and strategic investment models. They include: •- the role of a critical spillover level that drives the comparison between symmetric cooperative and non-cooperative efforts;•- the disincentive effect of symmetric spillovers for strategic investments and the positive effect of such spillovers for investment commitments and cooperative efforts;•- the fact that innovative output in many cases is highest when appropriation is neither perfect nor free, although circumstances also emerge where any lack of appropriation will discourage innovative efforts.
Empirical research on complementarity between organizational design decisions has traditionally focused on the question of existence of complementarity. In this paper, we take a broader approach to the issue, combining a "productivity" and an "adoption" approach, while including a search for contextual variables in the firm's strategy that affects complementarity. Analysis of contextual variables is not only interesting per se, but also improves the productivity test for the existence of complementarity. We use our empirical methodology to analyze complementarity between innovation activities: internal research and development (R& D) and external knowledge acquisition. Our results suggest that internal R& D and external knowledge acquisition are complementary innovation activities, but that the degree of complementarity is sensitive to other elements of the firm's strategic environment. We identify reliance on basic R& D--the importance of universities and research centers as an information source for the innovation process--as an important contextual variable affecting complementarity between internal and external innovation activities.
We compare the geographic location of patent citations with that of the cited patents, as evidence of the extent to which
knowledge spillovers are geographically localized. We find that citations to domestic patents are more likely to be domestic,
and more likely to come from the same state and SMSA as the cited patents, compared with a “control frequency” reflecting
the pre-existing concentration of related research activity. These effects are particularly significant at the local (SMSA)
level. Localization fades over time, but only very slowly. There is no evidence that more “basic” inventions diffuse more
rapidly than others.
The extent to which new technological knowledge flows across institutional and national boundaries is a question of great importance for public policy and the modeling of economic growth. In this paper we develop a model of the process generating subsequent citations to patents as a lens for viewing knowledge diffusion. We find that the probability of patent citation over time after a patent is granted fits well to a double-exponential function that can be interpreted as the mixture of diffusion and obsolescense functions. The results indicate that diffusion is geographically localized. Controlling for other factors, within-country citations are more numerous and come more quickly than those that cross country boundaries.
This paper explores the patterns of citations among patents taken out by inventors in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and Japan. We find (1) patents assigned to the same firm are more likely to cite each other, and come sooner than other citations; (2) patents in the same patent class are approximately 100 times as likely to cite each other as patents from different patent classes there is not a strong time pattern to this effect; (3) patents whose inventors reside in the same country are typically 30 to 80% more likely to cite each other than inventors from other countries, and these citations come sooner; and (4) there are clear country-specific citation tendencies; e.g., Japanese citations typically come sooner than those of other countries.
We introduce a new hybrid approach to joint estimation of Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) for high quantiles of return distributions. We investigate the relative performance of VaR and ES models using daily returns for sixteen stock market indices (eight from developed and eight from emerging markets) prior to and during the 2008 financial crisis. In addition to widely used VaR and ES models, we also study the behavior of conditional and unconditional extreme value (EV) models to generate 99 percent confidence level estimates as well as developing a new loss function that relates tail losses to ES forecasts. Backtesting results show that only our proposed new hybrid and Extreme Value (EV)-based VaR models provide adequate protection in both developed and emerging markets, but that the hybrid approach does this at a significantly lower cost in capital reserves. In ES estimation the hybrid model yields the smallest error statistics surpassing even the EV models, especially in the developed markets.
Addressing the widespread desire to better understand how climate change issues are addressed in the United States, this book provides an unparalleled analysis of features of the US economic and political system that are essential to understanding its responses to climate change. The introductory chapter presents a firm historical context, with the remainder of the book offering balanced and factual discussions of government, business and public responses to issues of energy policies, congressional activity on climate change, and US government involvement in international conferences. Abundant statistical evidence illustrates key concepts and supports analytic themes such as market failures, free riders, and the benefits and costs of alternative courses of action among industry sectors and geographic areas within the US. Written for audiences both outside and within the US, this accessible book is essential reading for anyone interested in climate change, energy, sustainable development or related issues around the world.
The diffusion of renewable energy in the power system implies high supply variability. Lacking economically viable storage options, renewable energy integration is possible thanks to the presence of modern mid-merit fossil-based technologies, which act as back-up capacity. This paper discusses the role of modern fossil-based power generation technologies in supporting renewable energy investments. We study the deployment of these two technologies conditional on all other drivers in 26 OECD countries between 1990 and 2013. We show that moving from the first to the third quartile of the distribution of modern fossil technologies is associated with an increase in yearly renewable energy investment of between 6 and 14 kW per thousand people, on average and ceteris paribus. This is a sizeable effect, considering that average yearly renewable capacity addition in our sample are around 12 kW per thousand people. These findings are robust to different econometric specifications, various definitions of modern fossil technologies and are stronger for wind, which is more intermittent and for which the mismatch between supply and demand is more marked. Our analysis points to the substantial indirect costs of renewable energy integration and highlights the complementarity of investments in different generation technologies for a successful decarbonization process.
This paper studies the knowledge spillovers generated by renewable energy technologies, unraveling the technological fields that benefit from knowledge developed in storage, solar, wind, marine, hydropower, geothermal, waste and biomass energy technologies. Using citation data of patents in renewable technologies filed at 18 European patent offices over the 1978–2006 period, the analysis examines the importance of knowledge flows within the same specific technological field (intra-technology spillovers), to other technologies in the field of power-generation (inter-technology spillovers), and to technologies unrelated to power-generation (external-technology spillovers). The results show significant differences across various technologies. Overall, patents in wind, storage and solar technologies tend to be more frequently cited than other technologies. While wind technologies mainly find applications within their own field, a large share of innovations in solar energy and storage technologies find applications outside the field of power generation. The paper discusses the implications of these results for policymaking.
Technological change and gains in efficiency of renewable power generation technologies are to a large extent driven by governmental support. Various policy instruments that can broadly be categorized as technology push, demand pull or systemic constitute part of the policy mix for renewable energies. Our goal is to gain insights into the influence of this policy mix on the intensity and organization of inventive activities for wind power and photovoltaics in Germany since the 1980s. We examine the effect of different instruments on the size and structure of co-inventor networks based on patent data. Our results indicate notable differences between the technologies: the network size for wind power is driven by technology push and systemic instruments, while in photovoltaics, demand pull is decisive for network growth. By and large, the instruments complement each other and form a consistent mix of policy instruments. The structure of the networks is driven by demand pull for both technologies. Systemic instruments increase interaction, especially in the wind power network, and are complementary to demand pull in fostering collaboration.
This paper studies the diffusion of knowledge and its consequences for local innovation production. In a common framework, we analyze the geographic reach of different channels of knowledge flows that thus far have been studied separately in the literature. To jointly estimate these flows, we develop and apply novel econometric techniques appropriate to the nature of the data. We find that geographic along with technological proximity to be more essential to the operation of market than to non-market channels of knowledge flows. External accessible disembodied knowledge has a strong positive effect on local innovation production that is larger than that of embodied knowledge.
The aim of this study is to examine public expenditures for energy R&D in Europe and the resulting energy knowledge stock. After the first oil shock energy R&D became more and more important in Europe. The energy R&D distribution among technologies of the EU member states and the European Commission was similar in the 1980s with a strong focus on nuclear energy. Nowadays,
energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies are of growing importance. The new program Horizon 2020 is expected to have an equal distribution between nonnuclear and nuclear energ y R&D expenditures. The cumulative energy knowledge stock induced by public R&D expenditures amounts to approximately 36 billion EUR in 2013, where upon the EU member states’ share
is more than three times larger than the European Commission’s share. The study provides knowledge stock scenarios for the next years under business as usual and changing conditions. According to the scenarios, the knowledge stock will increase to 48.5–55 billion EUR by 2023. For the first time, such comparison between the EU member states’ and the European Commission’s R&D expenditures has been performed for a period of more than 30 years, obtaining a clear picture of the induced energy knowledge stock.
The pace of industrial innovation and growth is shaped by many forces that interact in complicated ways. Profit-maximizing firms pursue new ideas to obtain market power, but the pursuit of the same goal by others means that even successful inventions are eventually superseded by others; this is known as creative destruction. New ideas not only yield new goods but also enrich the stock of knowledge of society and its potential to produce new ideas. To a great extent, this knowledge is nonexcludable, making research and inventions the source of powerful spillovers. The extent of spillovers depends on the rate at which new ideas outdate old ones, i.e., on the endogenous technological obsolescence of ideas, and on the rate at which knowledge diffuses among inventors. In this paper we build a simple model that allows us to organize our search for the empirical strength of the concepts emphasized in the preceding. We then use data on patents and patent citations as empirical counterparts of new ideas and knowledge spillovers, respectively, to estimate the model parameters. We find estimates of the average annual rate of creative destruction in the range of 2-7% for the decade of the 1970s, with rates for individual sectors as high as 25%. For technological obsolescence, we find an increase over the century from about 3% per year to about 12% per year in 1990, with a noticeable plateau in the 1970s. We find the rate of diffusion of knowledge to be quite rapid, with the mean lag between one and two years. Last, we find that the potency of spillovers from old ideas to new knowledge generation (as evidenced by patent citation rates) has been declining over the century; the resulting decline in the effective public stock of knowledge available to new inventors is quite consistent with the observed decline in the average private productivity of research inputs.
Global climate change presents one of the most difficult problems the international community has ever faced. Recent events at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference suggest that the United Nations is not yet equipped to address the issue, and national politics reveal that, in most cases, domestic politicians have neither the political will nor the regulatory tools at their disposal to structure effective policy regimes. Against this daunting backdrop, the experiences of United States and European Union climate policy over the last two decades offers instructive lessons. The historical evolution in US and EU climate policy exemplifies how climate change has risen to the top of political agendas in divergent contexts while the spans separating US and EU climate policy to date epitomize the struggles inherent in on-going global efforts to address climate change. Neither the EU nor the US offer unqualified lessons in success, but both offer many lessons, some of which reveal successes but all of which offer opportunities to learn from social, political, and regulatory experiments. Premised on the notion that US and EU efforts to address climate change are closely linked to global climate change politics, this book explores the content and process of climate change law and policymaking in the US and the EU to reveal policy convergences and divergences, and to examine how these convergences and divergences influence the ability of the global community to structure a sustainable, effective, and equitable long-term climate strategy.
This paper investigates empirically the effect of market regulation and renewable energy policies on innovation activity in different renewable energy technologies. For the EU countries and the years 1980 to 2007, we built a unique dataset containing information on patent production in eight different technologies, proxies of market regulation and technology-specific renewable energy policies. Our main findings show that lowering entry barriers is a more significant driver of renewable energy innovation than privatisation and unbundling, but its effect varies across technologies, being stronger in technologies characterised by the potential entry of small, independent power producers. Additionally, the inducement effect of renewable energy policies is heterogeneous and more pronounced for wind, which is the only technology that is mature and has high technological potential. Finally, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol – determining a more stable and less uncertain policy framework - amplifies the inducement effect of both energy policy and market liberalisation.
This paper contributes to the development of renewable energy innovation metrics through an exploration of innovation patterns across the European countries in 2010. The identified localized innovation capabilities describe the health of the wind, solar and bioenergy sectors, highlighting a concentrated RES innovation activity within four countries: Germany, France, United Kingdom and Denmark. The association of technological capabilities along the innovation composite indicators allows the extraction of useful insights of the role of environmental policies on employment and technological change. Briefly, the corporate research investment per patent is lower for wind energy (EUR 0.61 million) and higher for PV and biofuels (approximately EUR 1 million). Important lever of innovation capabilities across Europe is identified within public support to deployment, which provides significant insights in terms of economic efficiency of generation technologies; the investigation finds job ratios which are higher for wind and lower for PV technology. As the evolution of the market drives the patterns of innovation activities for all selected technologies, considerable financial consequences are identified in the context of delocalization of clean technology manufacturers.
The CRIOS-PatStat is a patent database made by a team of researchers active at Bocconi University (Milan).
In this database the user can find, for European patent office based applications, disambiguated inventors and applicants' names as well as other standardized information that are often difficult to find in other patent databases.
This paper was written with the aim to provide a complete explanation of its content and also an overview on the steps that led to the creation of this source of information.
With the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) expiring in 2020, the EU needs to revisit its energy technology policy for the post-2020 horizon and to establish a policy framework that fosters the achievement of ambitious EU commitments for decarbonization by 2050. We discuss options for a post-2020 EU energy technology policy, taking account of uncertain technology developments, uncertain carbon prices and the highly competitive global market for energy technologies. We propose a revised SET Plan that enables policy makers to be pro-active in pushing innovation in promising technologies, no matter what policy context will be realized in the future. In particular, a revised SET Plan should include a more technology-specific focus, provide the basis for planning and prioritization among decarbonization technologies, and should be based on a comprehensive approach across sectors. Selected technology targets and EU funding of innovation should be in line with the SET Plan prioritization.
In this paper we extend work previously undertaken in industries such as semiconductor and flat panel displays to investigate knowledge flows from advanced countries (US, Japan and Europe) to catch-up follower countries (Taiwan, Korea and China), this time in the emergent solar photovoltaic industry. The solar photovoltaic industry is of particular interest in that it is poised between exploitation of first generation (crystalline silicon technologies) and new thin film and organic compound technologies, thus providing distinct sources of knowledge flow as measured by patent citations and linkage. For this study, we deploy a new database of 19,105 solar photovoltaic patents taken out by Taiwan, Korea and China at the USPTO over the 24 years 1984–2008, and analyse the knowledge flows revealed in these patents using a set of 12 International Patent Classification technology categories that we constructed. We demonstrate commonalities in patterns of knowledge flow between solar photovoltaic and earlier industries, but also suggestive differences, such as rising dependence of the catch-up countries on their own intra-national knowledge generation and flow, indicating their shift from imitation to innovation.
As the world’s third leading economy and a major importer of fuels, the choice of future energy paths and policies that Japan makes in the next few years will have a significant influence on the energy security of the world as a whole, and of the Northeast Asia region in particular. In this article we describe the current status of and recent trends in the Japanese energy sector, including energy demand and supply by fuel and by sector. We then discuss the current energy policy situation in Japan, focusing on policies related to climate change targets, renewable energy development and deployment, liberalization of energy markets, and the evolution of the Japanese nuclear power sector. The final section of the article presents the structure of the Japan LEAP (long-range energy alternatives planning software system) dataset, describes several alternative energy paths for Japan – with an emphasis on alternative paths for nuclear power development and GHG emission abatement – and touches upon key current issues of energy policy facing Japan, as reflected in the modeling inputs and results.
This paper studies innovation dynamics in efficiency improving electricity generation technologies as an important means of mitigating climate change impacts. Relevant patents are identified and used as an indicator of innovation. We find that patenting in efficiency improving technologies has mostly been stable over time, with a recent decreasing trend. We also find that majority of patents are first filed in OECD countries and only then in non-OECD or BRIC countries. Conversely, non-OECD and BRIC countries apply for patents that are mostly marketed domestically. This result shows that there is significant technology transfer in the field of efficiency improving technologies for electricity production. This flow of know-how is likely to contribute to mitigation of greenhouse gases emissions in emerging economies in the long run.
This paper estimates the international diffusion of technical knowledge using patent citations. We control for self-citations and for procedural differences between patent offices using equivalent patents. We find that (1) there are clear biases in patent examination processes that generate citations in the two offices; (2) at the EPO there is a strong localization effect at the country level, and the size is comparable to that found at the USPTO; (3) technological fields have different properties of diffusion in the two patent offices that do not depend on a patent office bias; (4) using EPO data, the US is not the leading country in terms of citations made and received, as occurs at the USPTO. Copyright © The editors of the "Scandinavian Journal of Economics" 2010 .
The focus in this paper is on knowledge spillovers between high-technology firms in Europe, as captured by patent citations.
The European coverage is given by patent applications at the European Patent Office (EPO) that are assigned to high-technology
firms located in Europe. By following the paper trail left by citations between high-technology patents we adopt a case–control
matching approach to test the extent of localisation of knowledge spillovers at two geographic levels, the region and the
country level. This approach views a finding of disproportionate co-location of patent citations relative to co-located control
patents as evidence of localised knowledge spillovers. To disentangle border from geographic distance effects the paper adopts
a Poisson spatial interaction modelling perspective. The findings of the study not only indicate that localisation of knowledge
spillovers exists, but also that national border effects are more important than geographical distance effects. Thus, knowledge
flows within European countries more easily than across. Not only geography matters, but also technological proximity. Interregional
knowledge flows are industry specific and occur most often between regions located close to each other in technological space.
The amount of cost reduction or effective R&D that results in a symmetric sequential Nash equilibrium with quadratic payoffs and differentiated goods, is shown to increase with spillovers in oligopolies with a ‘few’ rivals and to achieve a maximum for spillovers that are not perfect in industries with ‘many’ firms. Similar tendencies apply for consumer surplus, profits and static welfare. More rivals typically lead to reduced investments, output and profitability, while consumer surplus and welfare increase, or at least do not decrease. Limited entry in markets with a ‘few’ rivals may enhance innovative investments, profitability and consumer surplus, if only product differentiation and spillovers are sufficiently high and R&D costs sufficiently low. Too many rivals will then again lead to reductions and a decrease in static welfare.
When studying solutions to long-term environmental problems such as climate change, it is important to consider the role that technological change may play. Nonetheless, to date few economic models of environmental policy explicitly model the link between policy and technological change. There is a growing body of evidence that the incentives offered by prices and environmental regulations have a strong influence on both the creation and adoption of new technologies. In several recent papers, I have used patent data to examine the links between environmental policy and technological change. In addition, I have used the results of this research to calibrate the ENTICE model (for ENdogenous Technological change) of climate change, which links energy-related R&D to changes in the price of carbon. Drawing on my experiences from empirical studies on innovation and from modeling the climate change problem, in this paper I review some of the key lessons from recent empirical work using patents to study environmental innovation and diffusion, and discuss its implications for modeling climate change policy. I conclude by offering suggestions for future research.
This paper estimates the effect of research externalities in generating innovation. We use R&D and patent data for European Regions in the 1977–1995 period. We find that spillovers are very localized and exist only within a distance of . The estimates are robust to simultaneity, omitted variable bias, different specifications of distance functions, country and border effects. However the size of these spillovers is small. Doubling R&D spending in a region would increase the output of new ideas in other regions within only by 2–3%, while it would increase the innovation of the region itself by 80–90%.
This paper examines patterns of knowledge diffusion from the U.S. and Japan to Korea and Taiwan using patent citations as an indicator of knowledge flow. We estimate a knowledge diffusion model using a data set of all patents granted in the U.S. to inventors residing in these four countries. Explicitly modeling the roles of technology proximity and knowledge decay and diffusion over time, we find that it is much more likely for Korean patents to cite Japanese patents than U.S. patents, whereas Taiwanese inventors tend to learn evenly from both. We also find that both Korea and Taiwan are surprisingly reliant on relatively recent technology.
Using panel data from 16 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries for the period 1981–2000, we examine the significance of international knowledge spillovers through inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI), intermediate goods imports, and a disembodied direct channel. Knowledge spillovers through the disembodied direct channel are approximated by using a measure of technological proximity and patent citations between countries. Using estimation models that reflect recent developments in non-stationary panel data econometrics, we show that international knowledge spillovers through inward FDI and the disembodied direct channel are significant and robust. In contrast, outward FDI and imports of intermediate goods are not conducive to international knowledge spillovers.
As an institution, the public sector is a major part of a nation's research system. This paper studies the effects of government research on long run growth, assuming that government research is not directly essential to market production but indirectly through its effect on private sector knowledge accumulation. The analysis features knowledge spillovers not only between public and private research sectors but also between research sectors of different countries. The findings: (i) characterize the efficient (growth-maximizing) size of government research; (ii) show that the efficient size is smaller in more open economies; and (iii) indicate that efficient government behavior precludes free-riding on foreign research spillovers (so long as domestic and foreign knowledge accumulation are interdependent).
Energy innovation plays a crucial role in the reduction of carbon emissions. In order to design climate and energy policies that promote the development, deployment and diffusion of new energy technologies, policy makers not only require a theoretical understanding of the energy innovation system, but also empirical evidence of the effects that policy actions have had. This paper focuses on public energy R&D, a traditional and controversial option among the various climate technology policies, and empirically analyses its relationship with carbon emissions per GDP (i.e. carbon intensity) and its two components: energy intensity and the carbon factor. Evidence of the causality links that have prevailed in 13 advanced economies over the 1980–2004 period has been obtained through dynamic panel models. Our findings confirm that government R&D spending is not sufficient by itself to boost the energy innovation process. Public energy R&D has been successful in improving energy efficiency at country level, but it has failed to have a significant impact on the carbon factor and carbon intensity. At the same time the formation of energy R&D budgets is found to be significantly affected by carbon trends.
Summary This paper investigates the extent to which East Asia has become a source of international knowledge diffusion and whether such diffusion is localized to the region. Using citations made by US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted patents to other USPTO patents as an indicator of knowledge flow, I investigate the patterns of knowledge diffusion in East Asia by estimating a model of international knowledge diffusion. While OECD countries remain the dominant sources of knowledge, I find evidence of increasing regionalization of knowledge flow in East Asia.
Using patent data from 66 countries for the period 1990-2003, we characterize the factors which promote or hinder the international diffusion of climate-friendly technologies on a global scale. Regression results show that technology-specific capabilities of the recipient countries are determinant factors. In contrast, the general level of education is less important. We also show that restrictions to international trade--e.g., high tariff rates--and lax intellectual property regimes negatively influence the international diffusion of patented knowledge. A counter-intuitive result is that barriers to foreign direct investments can promote transfers. We discuss different possible interpretations.
Knowledge flows within and across countries may have important consequences for both productivity and innovation. We use data on 1.5 million patents and 4.5 million citations to estimate knowledge flows at the frontier of technology across 147 subnational regions during 1975-1996 within the frame of a gravity-like equation. We estimate that only 20% of average knowledge is learned outside the average region of origin, and only 9% is learned outside the country of origin. However, knowledge in the computer sector flows substantially farther, as does knowledge generated by technological leaders. In comparison with trade flows, we see that knowledge flows reach much farther. External accessible R&D gained through these flows has a strong positive effect on innovative activity for a panel of 113 European and North American regions over 22 years. Copyright (c) 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Patent citation data are used in a growing body of economics and business research on technological diffusion. Until now, there exists little evidence on whether patent citations are a good measure of knowledge flows. Our pape