Gerschenkron (1962) argued that public institutions such as the State Bank of the Russian Empire spurred the country's industrialization. We test this assertion by exploiting plant-level variation in access to State Bank branches using a unique geocoded factory data set. Employing an...

This paper is an institutional study of the patent systems of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and its successor states Belgium and the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. The patent law of 1817 gave the state wide discretion to accept or refuse patents and to customise their duration,...

Currently, achieving sustainable transformation toward a carbon-dioxide-free industrial production process is one of the greatest challenges. The chemical element hydrogen used as an energy source and a basic feedstock can play an important role in reaching this goal. Our analysis is based on...

Empirical evidence on the historical role of Compulsory Schooling Laws (CSL) for the spread of mass education is mixed at best. This is also due to the difficulty of identifying exogenous variation in the application of CSL. We exploit an almost unique feature of a CSL in 1877 Italy which was...

What are the job multipliers of the green industrialization? We tackle this question within EU regions over the period 2003-2017, building a novel measure of green manufacturing penetration that combines green production and regional employment data. We estimate local job multipliers of green...

The rise of China in the global economy has been linked with negative impacts on employment across many high- and middle-income countries. However, evidence for African countries is limited. This paper investigates the causal relationship between Chinese imports and manufacturing employment in...

This paper documents African manufacturing exports along several dimensions. Manufacturing exports triply concentrated at 3 levels: countries that produce and export [half of exported manufactures come from 3 countries: South Africa (27%), Egypt (10%), and Morocco (10%)]; sectoral affiliation as...

What are the job multipliers of the green industrialization? We tackle this question within EU regions over the period 2003-2017, building a novel measure of green manufacturing penetration that combines green production and regional employment data. We estimate local job multipliers of green...

This paper examines Indonesia's upgrading within the global nickel value chain. Indonesia's transformation from a major nickel ore exporter into an integrated producer of refined nickel products offers important lessons for resource-rich developing countries seeking economic diversification....

Massive and irrational exploitation of natural resources promoted the industrialization process, which formed different categories of resource-based cities. Although these cities have made dramatic contributions to socio-economic development in the last two decades, they are now facing grave...

The era of debt, in the context of the Industrial Revolution 4.0, imposes the need to investigate how improvements in public and private debt can be achieved. This paper analyses the impact of the new technologies and political-economic systems on the economy reflected through the public debt of...

This article explores the role of Industrial Revolution 4.0 in transforming the labour market, analysing the impact of political, economic, and social factors on the acceptance of technology in the workplace, leading to the demand for new professional skills and the digitisation of traditionally...

Why did the industrial revolution occur in Europe and not in China, despite China being well ahead of Europe in terms of economic and technological achievements several centuries earlier? We revisit this long-standing question from a new perspective. We emphasize the importance of the different...

This article proposes to take a fresh look at Germany’s colonial past and its key players in order to trace the particular influence of economy in colonial contexts. It presents the Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) as a colonial actor outside the sectors typically explored in the context of the...

Clean industrialisation is a political and economic priority for the European Union. For it to work, affordable clean energy is needed. However, producing this energy in Europe is constrained by limited renewable energy endowments (sunshine and wind) and land availability, while the...

Hydrogen serves as an energy source and represents an important cornerstone for achieving the goal of maintaining a level of zero-carbon-dioxide emissions in industry production processes. Our analysis is based on the computable general equilibrium framework and focuses on a partial switch to...

This paper analyzes the use of tax policy as industrial policy in Mozambique. Despite significant foregone tax revenue due to industrial policy in the form of tax incentives, the effectiveness of Mozambique's tax policy remains questionable due to insufficient data and unclear public policy...

The aim of the article is to analyse the performance of the manufacturing sector in Europe in order to check whether there is a relationship between the level of development and the share of the industrial sector, and whether the manufacturing sector plays a key role in the economic growth and...

Creativity and innovation are now being encouraged in businesses because of technopreneurship, especially as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) picks up. In addition, the evolution brought by technology has influenced our everyday lives, jobs and communication, making it easier for...

The digital economy is a key driver of industrial upgrading and regional growth. Focusing on Gansu Province-an under-represented, less-developed region in northwest China-this study constructs a multidimensional digital economy index (DEI) for 2009-2023 under a unified normalisation and...

Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and Industry 5.0 (I5.0) represent important changes in industrial paradigms. I4.0 is centered on efficiency and competitiveness, and I5.0 adds sustainability, human-centricity, and resilience to the framework. Despite their growing relevance, much of the existing research...