Modelling International Wind Energy Diffusion: Are the Patterns of Induced Diffusion 'S' Shaped?

Abstract:     
Recent years have seen growing academic interest in the concept of induced diffusion as efforts to address concerns about energy security and climate change have intensified. Research on induced diffusion explores whether policy tools or interventions can incentivise the diffusion of innovations. This body of knowledge has explored the effectiveness and efficiency of various policy interventions and as such has been concerned with the determinants of diffusion. This paper is, by way of contrast, concerned with the patterns of diffusion when diffusion is induced. Thus, using two datasets, the paper explores the patterns of international wind energy diffusion in OECD countries. The model employed in the paper predicted that wind energy, as a complex and expensive innovation, would exhibit the characteristics of a logistic diffusion curve rather than a loglogistic curve. The empirical modelling of these two curves shows that, consistent with a further proposition developed in the paper, the results are no way near as conclusive as those of earlier studies. These results imply that the patterns of induced diffusion are considerably different to those observed conventionally.

Keywords: diffusion, induced diffusion, energy policy

JEL Classification: O33, O38, Q28, Q58, H23

working papers series