Policy shapes technology.Technology reshapes institutions.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are crucial for cutting transportation emissions, yet the policy drivers of EV innovation remain underexplored. This study analyzes firm-level panel data on EV and battery patents, covering more than 4,000 firms across 19 countries from 2010 to 2021, to assess how these policy tools and their interactions in different time horizons influence innovative activity. We test the effects of individual policy instruments that either raise demand for EVs or support the development of EV technologies. Stringent fuel-economy standards, financial incentives, adoption targets, and public R&D investments each significantly increase patenting in EV and battery technologies. Moreover, long-term EV targets amplify the innovative impact of public R&D and standards while diminishing the marginal effect of short-term price signals. The results suggest that governments can accelerate clean automotive innovation by combining long-term adoption commitments with sustained R&D investment or strong performance standards, and by managing these instruments as a coordinated policy portfolio rather than as separate tools. The study contributes cross-country, firm-level evidence that links policy design to the direction of clean technology innovation.

Innovation depends on coordinating expertise across organizations and technological fields. I examine whether government-supported inventions draw on a broader knowledge base and provide stronger foundations for subsequent innovation. In this study, I combine European Patent Office patent records with U.S. government-interest statements to identify electric vehicle inventions with disclosed federal funding support. Using a sample of 311 matched pairs of U.S. granted patents involving companies, I compare supported inventions with similar inventions without observed support and trace their knowledge connections through patent citations. Supported inventions draw a larger share of their knowledge from other institutional sectors, combine a modestly more diverse mix of technological knowledge, and connect to a broader history of earlier inventions. They draw 6.3 percentage points more knowledge from other types of organizations and build on a 17.6 percent larger body of earlier inventions. They also feature more prominently in later patent citations and connect to a wider network of subsequent inventions. These associations align with a coordination role for government support, suggesting that public funding may help researchers integrate knowledge across organizations and technological fields and focus on shared technological problems. The study offers a broader basis for evaluating public research support by examining the knowledge that inventions bring together and the foundations they provide for later technological development.

How do relationships with market intermediaries shape program delivery when government neither contracts with nor directly controls the organizations responsible for implementation? Existing research largely examines contemporaneous relational conditions within public contracts. We instead theorize accumulated relational experience as an informal governance resource in regulatory and certification-based programs. Repeated agency-intermediary exchange should improve delivery by developing program-specific knowledge, mutual expectations, and communication routines, with greater benefits when formal governance is least able to address implementation demands. We test this argument using an installer-quarter panel of 890 firms participating in New York State solar incentive programs from 2003 to 2025 and a shift-share instrumental-variable design. Accumulated agency-specific experience increases subsequent program-supported capacity; the effect is stronger when projects require more sustained coordination, provider markets are more concentrated, and intermediaries serve more disadvantaged communities. The findings extend relational governance beyond contracting, demonstrate the importance of measuring relationships cumulatively, and identify when accumulated relationships make a larger contribution to third-party implementation.

Electrification changes road users’ contributions to highway finance while governments maintain existing infrastructure. This paper develops state-specific battery-electric vehicle mileage benchmarks by multiplying recurring road-service expenditure per statewide vehicle-mile by average 2016-2018 motor-fuel-tax shares of highway receipts. Expenditures cover maintenance, operations, preservation, and bridge rehabilitation and replacement. Across 50 states during 2016-2024, the benchmark averages 0.438 real 2020 cents per mile, weighting state-years equally. State means range from 0.100 in Kansas to 1.296 cents in West Virginia. Regressions describe expenditure and financing differences across states and time. The framework provides a transparent reference for allocating expenditures to EV mileage payments.