IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2020i1p32-d466627.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring EU’s Regional Potential in Low-Carbon Technologies

Author

Listed:
  • Enrico Bergamini

    (Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Turin & Collegio Carlo Alberto, Piazza Arbarello 8, 10122 Turin, Italy)

  • Georg Zachmann

    (Bruegel, Rue de la Charité 33, B-1210 Brussels, Belgium)

Abstract

This research builds on the regional innovation literature, and aims to better understand the potential for, and development of, low-carbon technologies in the European Union. Exploiting the OECD’s REGPAT for regionalised patent data, we estimate the potential advantage of European NUTS2 regions have in 14 green technologies. We use network proximity between technologies and between regions to understand technological/regional clusters of revealed technological advantage and build the regressors for estimating regional potential advantage in specific technologies via zero-inflated beta regressions. Based on this, we explore the region-technology networks, finding two gravity centres for green innovation in France’s and Germany’s industrial and high-tech hubs (Île de France, Stuttgart, and Oberbayern). We also construct a dataset of lagged potentials and labour market, economic and demographic variables, and perform an elastic net regularisation to understand the association with current revealed advantages. Our approach indicates an association between technological advantage in green technologies and the (lags of) participation rates in labour markets, sectoral employment in science and technology, general higher education, duration of employment, percentage of GDP spent on R&D (public and private) and other expenditure on R&D. If confirmed by causality tests, the established associations could help in designing horizontal economic policies to enable specific regions to realise their specialisation potential in specific green technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrico Bergamini & Georg Zachmann, 2020. "Exploring EU’s Regional Potential in Low-Carbon Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-28, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2020:i:1:p:32-:d:466627
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/1/32/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/1/32/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ron Boschma & Koen Frenken, 2011. "The emerging empirics of evolutionary economic geography," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 295-307, March.
    2. Marco Giesselmann & Alexander Schmidt-Catran, 2018. "Interactions in Fixed Effects Regression Models," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1748, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    4. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2020. "Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(2).
    5. Bowen Yan & Jianxi Luo, 2017. "Measuring technological distance for patent mapping," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(2), pages 423-437, February.
    6. Ghisetti, Claudia & Marzucchi, Alberto & Montresor, Sandro, 2015. "The open eco-innovation mode. An empirical investigation of eleven European countries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 1080-1093.
    7. Sandro Montresor & Francesco Quatraro, 2020. "Green technologies and Smart Specialisation Strategies: a European patent-based analysis of the intertwining of technological relatedness and key enabling technologies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(10), pages 1354-1365, October.
    8. Pahle, Michael & Pachauri, Shonali & Steinbacher, Karoline, 2016. "Can the Green Economy deliver it all? Experiences of renewable energy policies with socio-economic objectives," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1331-1341.
    9. Mariani, Manuel Sebastian & Medo, Matúš & Lafond, François, 2019. "Early identification of important patents: Design and validation of citation network metrics," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 644-654.
    10. Capasso, Marco & Hansen, Teis & Heiberg, Jonas & Klitkou, Antje & Steen, Markus, 2019. "Green growth – A synthesis of scientific findings," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 390-402.
    11. Dani Rodrik, 2014. "Green industrial policy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 30(3), pages 469-491.
    12. Giuseppe Calignano & Michaela Trippl, 2020. "Innovation-Driven or Challenge-Driven Participation in International Energy Innovation Networks? Empirical Evidence from the H2020 Programme," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-18, June.
    13. Karl Aiginger & Dani Rodrik, 2020. "Rebirth of Industrial Policy and an Agenda for the Twenty-First Century," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 189-207, June.
    14. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    15. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Ron Boschma & Joan Crespo & David L. Rigby, 2019. "Smart specialization policy in the European Union: relatedness, knowledge complexity and regional diversification," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(9), pages 1252-1268, September.
    16. Hui Zou & Trevor Hastie, 2005. "Addendum: Regularization and variable selection via the elastic net," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 67(5), pages 768-768, November.
    17. Nathaniel Lane, 2020. "The New Empirics of Industrial Policy," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 209-234, June.
    18. Mark Huberty & Georg Zachmann, 2011. "Green exports and the global product space- Prospects for EU industrial policy," Bruegel Working Papers 556, Bruegel.
    19. Hui Zou & Trevor Hastie, 2005. "Regularization and variable selection via the elastic net," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 67(2), pages 301-320, April.
    20. Ospina, Raydonal & Ferrari, Silvia L.P., 2012. "A general class of zero-or-one inflated beta regression models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1609-1623.
    21. Martijn van den Berge & Anet Weterings, 2014. "Relatedness in eco-technological development in European regions," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1413, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2014.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arkadiusz Świadek & Jadwiga Gorączkowska & Karolina Godzisz, 2021. "Conditions Driving Low-Carbon Innovation in a Medium-Sized European Country That Is Catching Up–Case Study of Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-17, April.
    2. Huaide Wen & Jun Dai, 2021. "Green Technological Progress and the Backwardness Advantage of Green Development: Taking the Sustainable Development Strategy of Central and Western China as an Example," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-17, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nils Grashof & Stefano Basilico, 2023. "The dark side of green innovation? Green transition and regional inequality in Europe," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2314, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2023.
    2. Diogo Ferraz & Fernanda P. S. Falguera & Enzo B. Mariano & Dominik Hartmann, 2021. "Linking Economic Complexity, Diversification, and Industrial Policy with Sustainable Development: A Structured Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-29, January.
    3. Mealy, Penny & Teytelboym, Alexander, 2017. "Economic Complexity and the Green Economy," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-03, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, revised Feb 2019.
    4. Corrocher, Nicoletta & Grabner, Simone Maria & Morrison, Andrea, 2024. "Green technological diversification: The role of international linkages in leaders, followers and catching-up countries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    5. Mealy, Penny & Teytelboym, Alexander, 2022. "Economic complexity and the green economy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    6. Luo, Jiahui & Dong, Jingrong & Tan, Zhixiong & Zhang, Haitao & Zhang, Wenqing, 2024. "Relatedness, digital economy and renewable energy product evolution—based on product space perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    7. Belmartino, Andrea, 2022. "Green & non-green relatedness: challenges and diversification opportunities for regional economies in Argentina," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3697, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    8. Moreno, Rosina & Ocampo-Corrales, Diego, 2022. "The ability of European regions to diversify in renewable energies: The role of technological relatedness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
    9. Barbero, Javier & Diukanova, Olga & Gianelle, Carlo & Salotti, Simone & Santoalha, Artur, 2024. "Technologically related diversification: One size does not fit all European regions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    10. Hidalgo, César A., 2023. "The policy implications of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    11. Fusillo, Fabrizio, 2020. "Are Green Inventions really more complex? Evidence from European Patents," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 202002, University of Turin.
    12. Frank Neffke & Angelica Sbardella & Ulrich Schetter & Andrea Tacchella, 2024. "Economic Complexity Analysis," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2430, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Oct 2024.
    13. Li, Yang & Neffke, Frank M.H., 2024. "Evaluating the principle of relatedness: Estimation, drivers and implications for policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    14. Zhaoyingzi Dong & Yingcheng Li & Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Siqi Zheng, 2022. "Industrial land policy and economic complexity of Chinese Cities," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 367-395, March.
    15. Malgorzata Sztorc & Dorota Milek, 2022. "Modern Business Services as a Strategy for the Development of Smart Specializations," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 433-462.
    16. Mariane Santos Françoso & Vanessa Lima Avanci & Alysson Fernandes Mazoni, 2024. "Green technologies in the knowledge space: Insertion and the moderating role of industry knowledge bases," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 675-697, July.
    17. Scheifele, F. & Bräuning, M. & Probst, B., 2022. "The impact of local content requirements on the development of export competitiveness in solar and wind technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    18. Eva Coll-Martínez & Malia Kedjar & Patricia Renou-Maissant, 2022. "(Green) Knowledge spillovers and regional environmental support: do they matter for the entry of new green tech-based firms?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 69(1), pages 119-161, August.
    19. Kopka, Alexander & Grashof, Nils, 2022. "Artificial intelligence: Catalyst or barrier on the path to sustainability?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    20. Giovanni Dosi & Andrea Roventini & Emmanuele Russo, 2020. "Public Policies And The Art Of Catching Up," Working Papers hal-03242369, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2020:i:1:p:32-:d:466627. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.