My book manuscript uses the development of wind and solar industries in China, Germany, and the United States as a window into the political economy of innovation and industrial development in highly globalized industries. Tentatively titled "Varieties of Innovation: The Development of Wind and Solar Industries in China, Germany, and the United States," the manuscript argues that new possibilities for collaboration among firms in the global economy have reinforced national patterns of industrial specialization. In the decades before international economic integration made it easier for firms from around the world to work together on tasks ranging from production to innovation, differences in national capitalisms yielded equally distinct national industrial specializations for production, innovation, and competitiveness. Globalization has since challenged the primacy of nation states by moving beyond their territorial reach many of the activities that now make up the global economy. However, as I show in the book, globalization not only continues to be mediated by domestic institutions, it also causes persistent and consequential divergence of such institutions and national industrial specializations over time.

Based on nearly 300 qualitative interviews in wind and solar sectors, I show that firms enter emerging industries with industrial specializations and competitive strategies that build on the support of familiar institutional legacies. The global division of labor allows firms to respond to industrial policies for wind and solar sectors through the incremental development of existing industrial specializations, even when government policies aim for the creation of far broader sets of domestic capabilities. In doing so, firms reinforce divergent domestic institutions and industrial practices long thought to be under threat in the new global economy. In China, renewable energy firms responded to national innovation policies by repurposing the institutions of the manufacturing economy, while German wind and solar manufacturers relied on financial and vocational institutions of the Mittelstand. In the United States, startups with skills in the invention of new technologies utilized institutions for technology transfer from research institutes, but rarely established skills in commercialization and production domestically.

The book manuscript challenges the notion that globalization is primarily about competition, highlighting instead the central role of collaboration in determining both individual firm strategy and the preservation of national institutional differences. It showcases the continued importance of history for understanding the position of nations in the new global economy, but offers a new, firm-based mechanism to explain institutional endurance.