Evolutionary theories of economic change identify the processes of idiosyncratic learning by individual firms and of market selection as the two main drivers of the dynamics of industries. Are such processes able to robustly account for the statistical regularities which industrial structures...

The study of the co-evolution of processes of technological innovation and the resulting organisational changes has been a topic of interest since the first appearance of the idea of division of labour and specialisation in Adam Smith's works. The major phases of organisational change are in...

This paper highlights new findings on the wage-productivity nexus in the World Factory Economy. After presenting the long-run macro-elasticity characterizing the phase of Chinese economic development since the eighties, we look at the wage-productivity nexus from a micro level perspective using...

We explore the extent to which the current technological trend, dubbed Industry 4.0, might increase forms of control inside organisations, by focussing on pivotal firms in the so-called Italian Motor Valley currently embracing its adoption. We find that Industry 4.0 technologies open up great...

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the paths, directions, and ensuing degrees of technological adoption fostered by trade unions or, alternatively, forms of resistance thereof, in the so called 'Italian Motor-Valley', a distinctive technological district located in the outskirts of...

In this article we focus on the role of exports in Chinese economic development in the era of WTO accession. We address a series of different, although connected, questions. First, do Chinese exporting and non-exporting firms differ in terms of their productivity performance and paid wages?...

This paper studies the interplay in terms of techno-organisational change between the adoption of I4.0 technologies and lean production systems. Leveraging on the results of two field-work analyses conducted under a collaboration with the Sabattini Foundation and the metal workers trade union...

Wages and productivity represent two of the most relevant variables to consider in economic development. Given the low productivity levels that emerging countries reveal, the accumulation of productive capabilities and a narrower dispersion across sectors would enable emerging countries to...

In this paper we propose a novel sectoral taxonomy integrating three different attributes of sectors, namely i) the strategic dimension reflected into their belonging to different classes of the Pavitt taxonomy, ii) the capacity to create jobs both internally and externally with respect to their...

Wages and productivity represent two of the most relevant variables to consider in economic development. Given the low productivity levels that emerging countries reveal, the accumulation of productive capabilities and a narrower dispersion across sectors would enable emerging countries to...