Sustainable energy transition, knowledge co-creation and trade: the case of EU residential energy efficiency

The European Union (EU) sustainable energy transition requires radicalchanges of economic, technological, societal and political systems. Thispaper empirically investigates the relationships among environmentalpolicy, innovation and technological capabilities, and economicperformances, in terms of country export competitiveness, focusing onresidential energy efficiency goods, a core pillar of the EU energy andclimate strategy. We combine network analysis with a gravity model toinvestigate the evolution of the EU bilateral trade and co-patentingactivities from 1990 to 2015, based on a panel of 19 Europeancountries. Our results show that the technological skills of the exportingcountry, related to the production of the households’ energy-consuming appliances, strongly enhance its export performances, andthis effect is stronger when countries are EU members. Cooperation inknowledge creation and institutional proximities between tradepartners are further key determinants of export performances ofanalysed countries.