The unequal implications of Industry 4.0 adoption: evidence on productivity growth and convergence across Europe

Lamperti, F., Lavoratori, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0078-4525 and Castellani, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1823-242X (2023) The unequal implications of Industry 4.0 adoption: evidence on productivity growth and convergence across Europe. Economics of Innovation and New Technology. ISSN 1476-8364 doi: 10.1080/10438599.2023.2269089

Abstract/Summary

Do new manufacturing technologies of the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) boost TFP growth? By adopting a distance-to-frontier framework, this paper explores whether the adoption of (advanced) digital technologies affect the sectoral TFP growth rates across manufacturing industries of 14 European countries, during the period 2009–2019. We rely on a novel measure of adoption of I4.0 technologies (namely, advanced industrial robots, additive manufacturing and industrial internet of things), exploiting highly detailed (8-digit level) information on imports of capital goods embodying such technologies. Our results suggest that adopting new digital manufacturing technologies of the I4.0 brings quantitatively important and statistically significant contributions to sectoral TFP growth rates, although these are mostly concentrated in countries close to the technology frontier. In turn, these technologies seem to have hampered the process of convergence between European technological leaders and laggards over the last decade.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/113773
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/10438599.2023.2269089
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Henley Business School > International Business and Strategy
Publisher	Routledge
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