The Emergence and Diffusion of Green Technologies

This paper uncovers new stylized facts on the emergence and diffusion of green technologies across countries, sectors, and firms. It draws on the textual analysis of patents and corporate earnings calls matched with multi-country, firm-level panel data for 2012-2021. The paper documents the growing importance of green technologies after 2019, as revealed by a rapid increase in the share of earnings calls transcripts mentioning keywords associated with them. Among initially high-emissions firms, those that mentioned green technologies in earnings calls tended to observe a decline in carbon emissions in subsequent years. Buyer-supplier relationships and innovation partnerships with these firms, especially when they had high-emissions intensity, are systematically linked with the diffusion of green technologies