Frauke G. Braun, Jens Schmidt-Ehmcke, Petra Zloczysti
This paper studies technological change in renewable energy technologies. It provides unique empirical evidence on the determinants of innovative activity - measured by number of patent applications - in two important renewable technologies, solar and wind energy. This article investigates a new channel through which innovation is stimulated, namely prior knowledge which spills over to the field of renewable energy technologies. According to the sources of these spillovers, we distinguish between knowledge flows from domestic and foreign origin. Based on a panel of 22 OECD countries over the period from 1982 to 2004, we find empirical evidence that external knowledge has a strong, but varying, influence on these technologies. Knowledge spillovers are found to stimulate innovative activity, but the effect differs across technologies.
Themen: Energiewirtschaft
JEL-Classification: O31;Q42;Q55
Keywords: Technological change, renewable energy, patents, knowledge spillover, climate change
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