PhD Defence: Technological Change and Production Specialisation in the Green and Digital Transition

This doctoral dissertation seeks to make an empirical contribution to the evolving field of green and digital transition synergies. It employs a multilevel analysis and a diverse set of methodological tools, encompassing both micro and macro dimensions, across two primary domains: technological and productive. The chapters of this thesis are unified by an empirical effort to identify digital and green components and the synergies between them.  Chapter Chapter2 investigates whether the twin transition represents the simultaneous development of two loosely connected technological changes or whether green and digital technologies converge to form a distinct and unified stream of technological change.  Chapter Chapter3 extends the analysis to knowledge flows by examining citations of green and artificial intelligence (AI) patent pairs, assessing how different combinations of green and knowledge affect novelty within technological trajectories. Chapter Chapter4 examines the extent to which the adoption of digital and green technologies is complementary in industrial firms in developing countries and identifies certain characteristics that tend to be present when such complementarity occurs. Chapter Chapter5 broadens the scope to the production domain by examining the twin transition from the perspective of export and import diversification within a multi-dimensional economic complexity approach.