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Technological competitiveness of the EU member states in the era of the fourth industrial revolution

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  • Weresa Marzenna Anna

    (World Economy Research Institute, Collegium of World Economy, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, al. Niepodległości 162, 02-554 Warszawa, Poland)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the implications of the fourth industrial revolution for technological competitiveness, its definition and measurement methods. An empirical part is aimed at identifying comparative advantages of the European Union in digital technologies. Recently new approaches have appeared to measure digital competitiveness, however they use a broad definition of competitiveness that encompasses not only technological factors but also the macroeconomic and institutional environment (IMD, 2017; WEF, 2018). There is still a limited number of studies focused on the technological dimension of competitiveness in digital technologies. This paper fills the gap by developing a conceptual framework based on patent indicators, i.e. Patent Share and Revealed Technological Advantage indices. It allows a consistent analysis of the comparative advantages of the EU member states in digital technologies to be conducted. The results confirm a huge diversity within the EU in terms of digital technologies, their global impact and comparative advantages.

Suggested Citation

  • Weresa Marzenna Anna, 2019. "Technological competitiveness of the EU member states in the era of the fourth industrial revolution," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 5(3), pages 50-71, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:ecobur:v:5:y:2019:i:3:p:50-71:n:5
    DOI: 10.18559/ebr.2019.3.4
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    Cited by:

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    2. Fernando Almeida & Nelson Amoedo, 2021. "Exploring the association between R&D expenditure and the job quality in the European Union," Papers 2101.03214, arXiv.org.
    3. Artemisa Zaragoza-Ibarra & Gerardo G. Alfaro-Calderón & Víctor G. Alfaro-García & Fernando Ornelas-Tellez & Rodrigo Gómez-Monge, 2021. "A machine learning model of national competitiveness with regional statistics of public expenditure," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 451-468, December.
    4. Eleni Laitsou & Antonios Kargas & Dimitris Varoutas, 2020. "Digital Competitiveness in the European Union Era: The Greek Case," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-33, October.
    5. Igor Matyushenko & Serhii Hlibko & Mariana Petrova & Olena Khanova & Maryna Loktionova & Kamila Trofimchenko, 2021. "Assessment of Technological Competitiveness of Ukraine in Terms of Association with the EU," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 7, pages 148-176.
    6. Götz Marta, 2019. "Unpacking the provision of the industrial commons in Industry 4.0 cluster," Economics and Business Review, Sciendo, vol. 5(4), pages 23-48, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    technological competitiveness; digitalization; European Union; revealed technological advantage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

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