Look where they are! Firms’ eco-innovation and Industry 4.0 technologies in urban and rural areas

Luca Cattani, Sandro Montresor () and Antonio Vezzani
Additional contact information
Sandro Montresor: Gran Sasso Science Institute

No 2022-06, Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography from Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences

Abstract: We investigate the extent to which the firms’ propensity to eco-innovate, adopt Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and leverage them to eco-innovate varies with their location. We maintain that urban firms should be more prone to eco-innovate and adopt I4.0 technologies than rural ones, and more capable to make the latter functional to the former. Using a large sample of European firms, we test and confirm these hypotheses only partially. Firms in rural areas display a higher capacity to eco-innovate notwithstanding their lower digital propensity. However, an urban location reinforces the eco-innovative impact of digital technologies, irrespectively from its size.

Keywords: digital technologies; eco-innovation; twin transition; rural and urban areas. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O30 Q55 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2022-10, Revised 2024-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.gssi.it/images/discussion%20papers%20rseg/DPRSEG_2022_06.pdf First version, 2020 (application/pdf)

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:ahy:wpaper:wp32

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography from Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Andrea Ascani ().