Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?

By Nicolò Barbieri, Alberto Marzucchi, Ugo Rizzo. Research Policy, 2018

373 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The paper investigates the nature and impact of green technological change. We focus on the search and impact spaces of green inventions: we explore the knowledge recombination processes leading to the generation of inventions and their impact on subsequent technological developments. Using a large sample of patents, filed during the period 1980-2012, we employ established patent indicators to capture the complexity, novelty and impact of the invention process. Technological heterogeneity is controlled for by comparing green and non-green technologies within narrow technological domains. We find that green technologies are more complex and appear to be more novel than non-green technologies. In addition, they have a larger and more pervasive impact on subsequent inventions. The larger spillovers of green technologies are explained only partially by novelty and complexity.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management Science and Operations Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aa307f6ec5d4a043266168d4824ebcb975f489f9

Citations in the corpus