We analyze the role of public support in the financing pattern of R&D in German SMEs and their assessment of financing conditions in the context of other framework conditions for innovation. In Germany, there is a diversity of overall well-funded technology-neutral and technology-specific...

Over the past decade, research explaining cross country income differences has increasingly pointed to the dominant role of total factor productivity (TFP) gaps as opposed to factor accumulation. Nevertheless, it is a widely held belief that a country's ability to absorb and implement...

This paper studies technological change in renewable energies, providing empirical evidence on the determinants of innovative activity with a special emphasis on the role of knowledge spillovers. We investigate two major renewable energy technologies - wind and solar - across a panel of 21 OECD...

This paper provides first empirical insights on the relationship between green public procurement (GPP) and firms' innovation activities. Considering that the public sector is a large buyer in the economy, public procurement is able to work as demand-pull factor for new products and thus...

Germany changed renewable remuneration for wind power from a fixed Feed-In Tariff (FIT) to a floating Market Premium Scheme (MPS) in 2012. One aim of this adjustment was to better align the supply of generated wind electricity with the demand for it, e.g. through more system-friendly wind...

Power systems with increasing shares of wind and solar power generation have higher capital and lower operational costs than traditional technologies. This increases the importance of the cost of finance for total system cost. We quantify how renewable policy design can influence cost of finance...

Low and uncertain carbon prices are often stated as a major obstacle for industrial sector investments in technologies to deliver deep emissions reductions. Project-based carbon contracts underwritten by national governments could addressregulatory risk, lower financing costs and strengthen...

Moving non-incremental innovations from the pilot scale to full commercial scale raises questions about the need and implementation of public support. Heuristics from the literature put policy makers in a dilemma between addressing a market failure and acknowledging a government failure:...

The transition towards low-carbon economies requires massive investments into renewable energies, which are commonly supported through regulatory frameworks. Yet, governments can have incentives - and the ability - to deviate from previously-announced support once those investments have been...

Cost of renewable energies have dropped, approaching wholesale power price levels. As a result, the role of renewable energy policy design is shifting - from covering incremental costs towards facilitating risk-hedging. An analytical model of the financing structure of renewable investment...