How does Industry 4.0 affect the relationship between centre and periphery? The case of manufacturing industry in Germany

Samuel Greef and Wolfgang Schroeder

European Planning Studies, 2021, vol. 29, issue 9, 1656-1671

Abstract: In Germany, the debate on economic challenges and strategic orientation is strongly focussed on the industrial sector as the backbone and anchor of the German economy. In relation to the digitalization of the manufacturing industry, the term Industry 4.0 is used. The concept focuses primarily on possibilities for optimizing processes of production and product innovation. It thus aims at incremental rather than disruptive developments. Incremental digital development that enables synergies between existing regional strengths and the potentials of Industry 4.0 bears the danger of increasing rather than reducing regional disparities. The expansion of Industry 4.0 can especially be found in strong industrial centres. Many implementation examples are located in the vicinity of university towns, in regions with high population density as well as high expenditure on research and development by large industrial companies. As a result, there are hardly any shifts between the existing industrial centres and the periphery with its weak industrial base. So far, Industry 4.0 seems to have contributed little to reducing existing regional disparities.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2021.1963051 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:29:y:2021:i:9:p:1656-1671

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2021.1963051

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().