The new type of industrialization called Industry 4.0 is gaining increasing importance for manufacturing and service firms alike. Industry 4.0 is characterized by the interconnection between different information and communication technologies and between production facilities such as machines,...

This paper investigates whether firms innovate persistently or discontinuously over time using an innovation panel data set on German manufacturing and service firms for the period 1994-2002. We find that innovation behaviour is permanent at the firm-level to a very large extent. Using a dynamic...