Previous studies have modeled green technological change as innovations in the process of production (e.g., abatement technologies or energy sources). But greening the economy also requires changing products. The automotive industry, for example, needs to massively deploy alternative-fuel vehicles. Product manufacturing occurs within supply-chain networks, and developing new products typically requires complementary investments by suppliers. We study the incentives for green product innovation in industrial networks and how policies can affect them. We follow the industrial organization theory of product differentiation, and model green product innovations as upgrades in product quality where inputs from suppliers are essential for upgrading quality. We show that suppliers can be innovation bottlenecks and render policy instruments less effective. We provide an explicit mechanism for the role of institutions that help actors coordinate on the long-term direction of innovation. We discuss how our results help organize several findings from case studies in the automotive industry.

先前的研究将绿色技术变化建模为生产过程中的创新（例如减排技术或能源）。但是，绿色经济也需要改变产品。例如，汽车工业需要大规模部署替代燃料汽车。产品制造发生在供应链网络中，开发新产品通常需要供应商的补充投资。我们研究了工业网络中绿色产品创新的激励机制，以及政策如何对其产生影响。我们遵循产品差异化的产业组织理论，将绿色产品创新建模为产品质量的提升，其中供应商的投入对于提升质量至关重要。我们表明，供应商可能会成为创新瓶颈，并使政策工具的效力降低。我们为机构的角色提供了明确的机制，以帮助参与者在创新的长期方向上进行协调。