ABSTRACT

Although the climate challenge requires proactive policies that spur innovation in the renewable energy sector, various countries commit vastly different levels of support for renewable energy R&D. This paper addresses the question why this may be the case. Specifically, the objective is to analyse the determinants of government support to renewable energy R&D in the European Union (EU), and, in doing this, we devote particular attention to the question of whether the level of this support tends to converge or diverge across EU Member States. The investigation relies on a data set of 12 EU Member States and a bias-corrected dynamic panel data estimator. We test for the presence of conditional β-convergence, and the impacts of energy dependence and electricity regulation on government R&D efforts. The findings display divergence in terms of government support to renewable energy R&D, and this result is robust across various model specifications and key assumptions. The analysis also indicates that countries with a low energy-import dependence and deregulated electricity markets tend to experience lower growth rates in government renewable energy R&D. The paper ends by discussing some implications of the results, primarily from an EU perspective.

摘要

尽管气候挑战需要积极的政策来刺激可再生能源领域的创新，但不同国家对可再生能源研发的支持水平大相径庭。本文解决了为什么会出现这种情况的问题。具体而言，我们的目标是分析欧盟 (EU) 政府对可再生能源研发支持的决定因素，在此过程中，我们特别关注这种支持水平是趋于趋同还是趋于分散的问题欧盟成员国。该调查依赖于 12 个欧盟成员国的数据集和一个经过偏差校正的动态面板数据估计器。我们测试条件β的存在-融合，以及能源依赖和电力监管对政府研发工作的影响。调查结果显示政府对可再生能源研发的支持存在差异，并且这一结果在各种模型规范和关键假设中都是稳健的。分析还表明，能源进口依赖度低且电力市场管制放松的国家在政府可再生能源研发方面的增长率往往较低。本文最后主要从欧盟的角度讨论了结果的一些含义。