2023/32 | LEM Working Paper Series | ||||||||||||||||
Technological Sovereignty and Strategic Dependencies: The case of the Photovoltaic Supply Chain |
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Serenella Caravella, Francesco Crespi, Giacomo Cucignatto and Dario Guarascio |
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Keywords | |||||||||||||||||
Technological sovereignty; Strategic dependency; Photovoltaic industry; Trade; Patents.
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JEL Classifications | |||||||||||||||||
C23, F18, O31, O38, Q42.
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Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
This work sheds new light on the Photovoltaic Supply Chain (PVSC), providing fresh evidence on
structural dependencies (SDs) and (asymmetrically distributed) technological capabilities. Bridging
the perspectives of 'technological sovereignty' and 'strategic autonomy', a number of contributions
are provided. First, we carry out a fine-grained mapping of the PVSC, combining trade and patent
data. Second, we assess the long-term evolution of trade and technological hierarchies, documenting
processes of polarization and growing SDs. Third, we zoom-in on critical PV areas (i.e. products and
related technologies), providing a 'strategic intelligence' activity which may prove useful for tailoring
trade, industrial and innovation policies. Fourth, we explore the relationship between technological
specialization and productive capabilities showing that, in the upstream segment, reinforcing the
former may help mitigating SDs.
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