Essays on trade, competitiveness and innovation in the transition to clean technology

Andres, Pia-Katharina (2024) Essays on trade, competitiveness and innovation in the transition to clean technology. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

This thesis studies how the global transition to a low carbon economy affects, and is affected by, countries’ interactions in global trade, as well as broader technological developments. It contains four self-contained chapters. Chapter 2 presents a strategic model of trade in a clean technology in the presence of differential country-level production costs and imperfect competition. I show that when production cost disparities surpass a critical threshold, and learning-by-doing facilitates catch-up for the laggard, opting for autarky during Stage 1 can enhance overall welfare for both countries. Chapter 3 examines the effects of Chinese import competition on firm-level innovation in solar photovoltaic technology by European firms using a sample of 10,137 firms in 15 EU countries over the period 1999-2020. I show that firms which were exposed to higher import competition innovated more if they had a relatively small existing stock of innovation, but less if their historical knowledge stock fell within the top 10th percentile of firms in the sample. As firms with a smaller knowledge stock tended to innovate more overall, trade with China appears to have been beneficial in encouraging innovation among the most innovative firms. However, I also find evidence that import competition increased the probability of exit among firms in the sample. Chapter 4 highlights which countries are most at risk of seeing their productive capabilities ‘stranded’. Using methods from economic geography and complexity, we show that countries exporting a high number of technologically sophisticated brown products should find it relatively easy to transition. Conversely, those relying on few, low-complexity brown products for a large percentage of export volume have few diversification opportunities. In Chapter 5 we show how, in theory, a General Purpose Technology such as AI might affect the competition between clean and dirty technologies. We then use patent data to show that clean technologies absorb more spillovers from AI and ICT than dirty technologies and that energy patenting firms with higher AI knowledge stocks are more likely to absorb AI spillovers for their energy inventions.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2024 Pia-Katharina Andres
Library of Congress subject classification:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences H Social Sciences > HF Commerce T Technology > T Technology (General)
Sets:	Departments > Geography and Environment
Supervisor:	Fouquet, Roger and Sato, Misato
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4747

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