The international economics of resources and resource ... - Index of

246 R. Walz
1 Introduction
Competences for green development and leapfrogging in Newly Industrializing
Countries (NICs) are becoming increasingly urgent from a global perspective. This
also holds for innovations to increase material efficiency, which are receiving
increasing interest among sustainability innovations. The integration of these
innovations into the development process in the rapidly growing economies requires
knowledge build-up and technology cooperation. The prospect of exporting
sustainability technologies can add an incentive for Newly Industrializing Countries
to move towards sustainability technologies.
The first part of the paper deals with conceptual issues. First, the importance of
innovation and technology cooperation are discussed within the traditional view of
environmental economics on global environmental challenges. Prerequisites for
successful technology cooperation and export success in international trade are
presented. Secondly, the empirical research concept to measure capabilities for green
development is explained.
The remainder of the paper analyses selected NICs. The empirical results include
the general framework condition for sustainability innovations. The technological
capabilities in sustainability technologies are analyzed. They comprise 6 fields of
sustainability technologies: (1) material efficiency, including renewable resources,
ecodesign of products and recycling, (2) environmental friendly energy supply
technologies, including renewable energy, cogeneration and CO2 neutral fossil fuels,
(3) energy efficiency, both in buildings and in industry, (4) transport technologies,
(5) water technologies, and (6) waste management technologies. These technological
fields are analyzed with innovation indicators such as publications, patents and trade.
In an additional section, disaggregated results are presented for the case of material
efficiency. Based on these results, first conclusions for the role of sustainability
innovations for the economic development process in NICs are drawn. Finally, the
limitations of such an indicator based overview are explored.
2 Conceptual issues
2.1 Prerequisites for leapfrogging
There is general consensus that environmental sustainability requires an integration
of environmental friendly technologies in the economic catching up process of
Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs). Since the seminal paper of Grossmann and
Krueger (1995), this challenge is discussed within the concept of the Environmental
Kuznets Curve (EKC). According to the EKC-hypothesis, environmental pressure
grows faster than income in a first stage of economic development. This is followed
by a second stage, in which environmental pressure still increases, but slower than
GDP. After a particular income level has been reached, environmental pressure
declines despite continued income growth. Graphically, this hypothesis leads to an
inverted U-curve similar to the relationship Kuznets suggested for income inequality
and economic per capita income (Fig. 1).