Country-specific drivers of triadic patent families in selected environment-related technologies: a country-level empirical research on environmental innovation activity

Abstract

The importance of innovation in being a driving force for national economic development is broadly acknowledged by a large body of literature. Especially, the development of environmentally friendly technologies and services has transformed into a growing industry and, thus, gained in influence on economic growth patterns. Motivated by differences in eco-innovation performance across OECD economies, the present study provides new evidence on countryspecific determinants of environmental related innovation activity. Using panel data setting of 28 OECD countries concerned over the period 1998 – 2013, the analysis builds upon theoretical grounds of ideas-driven endogenous growth theory as well as the national innovation system (NIS) perspective and examines the relationship between determinants of five innovation conditions and environmental innovation output. Particularly, the study integrates separate literature strands regarding institutional-, human capital and research-, infrastructure-, market sophistication- and business sophistication conditions into a single model. Referring to Triadic Patent Families in selected environment-related technologies, the thesis employs an empirical operationalisation of eco-innovation that improves international comparability compared to commonly used patent counts from single patent offices. Using fixed effects regression models, empirical results suggest that governmental expenditures on education, credit availability to the private sector, and inward foreign direct investments play a role in determining national environment-related innovation performance. In contrast, no evidence is found for a significant impact of factors regarding institutional- as well as infrastructural innovation conditions