The emergence of a growth industry: a comparative analysis of the German, Dutch and Swedish wind turbine industries

*Financial support from the Swedish National Energy Administration is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to all the people in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden who have contributed to the empirical content of this paper by allowing us to interview them. We are also grateful to Bo Carlsson and Michael Durstewitz for useful comments on an earlier draft. The objective of this paper is to compare the evolution of the wind turbine industry in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Four factors stand out in explaining the relative success of the German industry: (1) creation of variety in an early phase, (2) establishment of legitimacy of wind energy, (3) the employment of advanced market creation policies in a later phase and (4) the use of industrial policy to favour the domestic industry. Implications for policy include fostering legitimacy for the new technology and creating powerful, predictable and persistent economic incentives