Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Ron Boschma
Abstract: This paper aims to identify the future Industry 4.0 centers of knowledge production in Europe. We expect Industry 4.0 Technologies (I4Ts) to thrive in regions where they can draw on local resources from related technologies. We use OECD-REGPAT data to identify I4T-related technologies, and find that I4Ts are located at the periphery of the knowledge space. Regions with a high potential in terms of I4T-related technologies were more likely to diversify successfully in new I4Ts in the period 2002-2016. We find big differences across EU regions: some show high but most regions show weak I4T potential.
Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography 