INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS AND THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, RECENT CHANGES AND THE INDUSTRY 4.0 CHALLENGE

Industrial districts represent the past and the future of the Italian production landscape. Nowadays, they are one of the few examples of economic dynamism in extra-urban areas. In recent years, these socioeconomic agglomerations have been facing huge challenges, including international competition, financial crises and servitization of the manufacturing industry. However, it is the technological change of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that represents the greatest challenge and at the same time, the greatest opportunity for industrial districts. Thus, observing how these places are facing this technological revolution is of particular interest. This thesis is based on a mix-method approach and is organised into six main chapters. Chapter 1 is dedicated to describing the theoretical backgrounds at the base of local development studies, focusing particularly on endogenous factors. More precisely, this chapter is divided into three sections. Firstly, we discuss the notion of economic embeddedness. Secondly, we provide an outline of the so-called local development ‘Italian school’ centred on the industrial district concept. Finally, we present a more recent contribution to the field from the emerging approach of new evolutionary economic geography. Chapter 2 is based on descriptive analyses aiming to grasp the current role of industrial districts in the Italian economy and how they have changed in recent years. Chapter 3 introduces the theoretical notion of territorial manufacturing servitization and tests the hypothesis connected to it, alongside the ones that emerged in the first chapter, through a multilevel regression. Chapter 4 is more theoretical; it presents a detailed discussion of the Industry 4.0 concept and reflects on the relationship between technological changes, economic organisation and places. Chapter 5 empirically investigates the sectorial and territorial articulation of the Italian 4.0 policy by using an original dataset. It also performs a quantitative counterfactual analysis to understand if industrial district firms show a higher propensity in adopting 4.0 technologies. Lastly, Chapter 6 utilises qualitative methods to compare two metalworking industrial districts. These last empirical steps allow for investigating the hypothesis that emerged in the previous chapter and the role of local governances in fostering Industry 4.0 adoption.