This paper presents a critical review of the global value chain (GVC) literature in light of the “technological capabilities” approach to innovation in less-developed countries (LDCs). Participation in GVC is beneficial for firms in LDCs, which are bound to source technology internationally. However, the issues of learning and technological efforts at the firm level remain largely hidden in the GVC literature. We propose a shift in the empirical and theoretical agenda, arguing that research should integrate the analysis of the endogenous process of technological capability development, including specific firm-level efforts, and of the mechanisms allowing knowledge to flow within and between different global value chains into the GVC literature.

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The aim of this article is to analyse the nature and extent of knowledge and information networks in an Italian wine cluster. Moreover, the relation between firms' characteristics and the knowledge network structure is also explored. The empirical findings show that knowledge is unevenly distributed in clusters and that networks of knowledge and information differ a great deal in terms of their structure. In fact, knowledge flows are restricted to a tightly connected community of local producers, differing in terms of knowledge assets, innovation behaviour and overall economic performance with respect to the rest of the firms in the cluster.

Despite being the main thriving force behind economic growth and industrial development, technological innovation remains highly concentrated on a handful of countries. It is therefore of a great interest to know how countries accumulate and develop their innovative capabilities, what kind of obstacles they need to overcome, and whether it is possible to identify opportunities to develop new areas of technological specialization. In this paper we analyze countries' patterns of technological diversification and specialization along the development process. We provide evidence regarding the importance of existing technological capabilities and the relationship among technologies in shaping possible paths of technological development. We show that the likelihood of diversification is higher for those technologies that are related to countries' existing profile of competences. Moreover, we show this effect to be stronger at earlier stages of development. Additionally, we show that countries tend to follow clear patterns of specialization along the development path, by moving towards more complex and valuable technologies.

The idea that skills, technology, and knowledge, are spatially concentrated, has a long academic tradition. Yet, only recently this hypothesis has been empirically formalized and corroborated at multiple spatial scales, for different economic activities, and for a diversity of institutional regimes. The new synthesis is an empirical principle describing the probability that a region enters-or exits-an economic activity as a function of the number of related activities present in that location. In this paper we summarize some of the recent empirical evidence that has generalized the principle of relatedness to a fact describing the entry and exit of products, industries, occupations, and technologies, at the national, regional, and metropolitan scales. We conclude by describing some of the policy implications and future avenues of research implied by this robust empirical principle. C. A. Hidalgo and P.-A. Balland-Contributed equally.

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Innovation modes in services, KIBS, Italy, O31, O50, L84,

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