Green technologies, complementarities, and policy

Nicolò Barbieri (), Alberto Marzucchi and Ugo Rizzo

SPRU Working Paper Series from SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: The present study explores the technological complementarities between green and non green inventions. First, we look at whether inventive activities in climate-friendly domains de pend on patenting in related technological domains that are not green. Based on patent data filed over the 1978–2014 period, we estimate a spatial autoregressive model using co-occurrence matrices to capture technological interdependencies. Our first finding highlights that the develop ment of green technologies strongly relies on advances in other green and in particular non-green technological domains, whose relevance for the green economy is usually neglected. Building on this insight, we detect the non-green complementary technologies that co-occur with green ones and assess whether environmental policies affect this particular instantiation of technologies at the country level. The results of the instrumental variable approach confirm that while envi ronmental policies spur green patenting, they do not displace the development of the non-green technological pillars upon which green inventions develop.

Keywords: Green technology; patent data; environmental policy; network-dependent innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-hme, nep-ino, nep-res and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Working Paper: Green technologies, complementarities, and policy (2021)
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