China dominates the global solar photovoltaic (PV) value chain, while 15 years ago the demand and supply were located in few Western economies. In this process, the PV industry has seen a booming demand, drastic price decreases along the supply chain, and fierce competition among surviving companies. This paper seeks to understand how this spatial shift has occurred and its drivers, with a specific focus on the role of intangible assets and intellectual property.
This Companion provides a review of global value chains (GVCs) and the megatrends that are shaping them and will continue to reshape them in deep-set trajectories of change over the next few decades. Megatrends herald both challenges and opportunities. With the growing interest among business leaders and researchers in GVCs, this is a reference work which fills a gap in current literature by focusing on the new features of GVCs, including the shift of global purchasing power towards developing economies, the significance of emerging technologies and data analytics, the increasing tensions between globalisation and de-globalisation, and the role of micro-multinationals, start-up entrepreneurs, the public sector and middle markets in a fast-changing global economy. The early chapters are essentially intradisciplinary in character, with the first seeking to explore some historical aspects of GVCs. Subsequent chapters cover the theory and practice of operations and supply chain management, emerging supply chain technologies, and the impact of inter-firm collaboration across sectors and economies. The final chapters take a more interdisciplinary approach and examine topics at the interface of GVCs with the economy, society, culture and politics. This comprehensive handbook provides a timely analysis of leading-edge global megatrends and practices in one volume.
We analyze inventions in green energy technologies over the period 2005-2017. We use a novel dataset, making use of the IPC Green Inventory of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to analyze four broad categories of green energy technologies including alternative energy production technologies, energy conservation technologies, and green transportation. We use these data to look at how patent families and PCT international patent applications have evolved in this field in recent years. We find that energy innovation-related patenting has first expanded exponentially up until 2013, both in terms of the total number of patent families and PCT international patent applications in green energy technologies. Yet this period of accelerated growth in the number of published green energy patents has been followed by a period of deceleration—even a slow decline. Although most green energy technologies have seen a downward trend in the annual number of patents published since 2012, the decline has been most pronounced in nuclear power generation technologies and alternative energy production technologies. The latter notably include renewable energy technologies, such as solar and wind energy, and fuel cells. In contrast, patents in energy conservation technologies and green transportation technologies have continued to grow, but at a slower pace.
Recognizing the urgent need to transform energy systems to low-carbon alternatives, this timely book offers evidenced and credible ways to accelerate actions towards meeting the Paris Agreement goals and achieving net zero emissions. Steven Fries analyses through the lens of government, business and household actionsÑtheir policies and investmentsÑthe systemic changes needed to eliminate net carbon dioxide emissions from energy.
The World Intellectual Property Report 2017 examines the crucial role of intangibles such as technology, design and branding in international manufacturing. Macroeconomic analysis is complemented by case studies of the global value chains for three products – coffee, photovoltaic energy cells and smartphones – to give an insightful picture of the importance of intellectual property and other intangibles in modern production.
This book seeks to examine the impacts associated with China’s carbon-energy policy in Asia and how, coupled with the Belt and Road Initiative, these effects prompt foreign direct investments in coal power and exports of renewable energy technologies. China shows a co-evolution of carbon-energy policy and energy transitions from coal to renewables. Assessing how the policy intensifies pressures and motivations to Chinese companies, chapters in this edited volume analyse how the policy has changed energy and CO2 emissions in Asia through the lens of carbon leakage, relocation, and halos. Contributors present in-depth studies on China’s investments and exports, and also its impacts on Indonesia, India, Vietnam, and Japan. Using applied computable general equilibrium and scenario input-output analyses, chapters investigate if regional electricity connectivity reduces new coal power investments through efficiency gain. Arguing that China is shifting from the world’s factory to the leading innovator and Asia's demand centre, it is ultimately demonstrated that China is likely to achieve climate targets whereas Asia to increase CO2 emissions and economic reliance on China. China’s Carbon-Energy Policy and Asia’s Energy Transition will be of significant interest to students and scholars of energy, environment, and sustainability studies, as well as Chinese studies and economics.
Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And trade conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. World Development Report 2020: Trading for Development in the Age of Global Value Chains examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.
This study presents options to fully unlock the world’s vast solar PV potential over the period until 2050. It builds on IRENA’s global roadmap to scale up renewables and meet climate goals.
Innovation Dynamics and Policy in the Energy Sector discusses the process and future of global innovation in the energy sector based on the innovation leadership example of Texas. The book proposes that the positive dynamics of Texas energy sector innovations arises from a confluence of factors, including supportive institutions, the management of technological change, competitive markets, astute public policy, intraindustrial collaboration, a cultural focus on change and risk-taking, and natural resource abundance. Heavily case-study focused chapters review the fundamental drivers of innovation, from key discoveries at Spindletop; the proliferation of oil production through major field development; through electric sector deregulation; and recent innovation in hydraulic fracking, renewable integration, and carbon capture. The work closes to argue that sustainable global innovation addressing the twin challenges of climate change and the energy transition must be driven by the promotion of competition and risk-taking which continually promotes the development of ideas, a process jointly funded by the public and private sectors and supported by collaborative and competitive institutions. - Reviews the fundamental drivers of energy innovation and examines each driver through 10 key episodes in the Texas energy innovation experience, inclusive of guidance to the international research community based on their example. - Establishes the critical impact of constructive energy policy, energy technology, and power markets in cultural settings that invite change and risk-taking and proposes them as key factors in building sustainable innovation. - Consolidates current research and practice related to innovation from the perspectives of established (economics and engineering) and emergent (innovation economics and econometrics) disciplines.
Today’s production processes are fragmented across countries and industries. Intangibles play an important role, but their measurement is elusive. This paper proposes a new empirical framework to measure factor incomes in production that spans industries and countries.
