Scientific and industrial specialisation, structural change and economic growth: Global evidence

Understanding how structural change drives long-run growth requires jointly considering the dynamics of productive and scientific specialisations, and science–industry alignment. This paper develops and tests a unified framework that integrates evolutionary, structuralist, complexity, and innovation-systems perspectives to assess how productive and scientific specialisations, science-industry alignment, diversification, and global value chain integration shape economic performance. To operationalize this framework, we construct new indicators, including a Science–Industry Matching (SIM) index, measures of dynamic entry and relatedness density, and specialisation-based diversity indices, and apply them to a panel of up to 142 countries over 2000–2018/2023. Estimation relies on country fixed effects with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to address heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, and cross-sectional dependence. The results reveal that persistent specialisation in high- and medium-high-tech industries fosters growth, while low-tech dependence constrains it. Scientific specialisation in enabling fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and energy/environmental sciences supports growth, but excessive concentration risks lock-in. Science–industry alignment enhances growth in advanced economies with strong absorptive capacity but penalises weaker systems. Industrial diversification often dilutes resources, whereas scientific diversification consistently promotes growth by broadening the knowledge base for recombination. Finally, integration into global value chains is growth-enhancing in developing economies, while advanced economies can sustain higher domestic value added without significant penalties. • New indicators capture specialisation, diversification, and science–industry alignment. • Persistent high- and mid-tech specialisation fosters growth, low-tech dependence hinders it. • Scientific diversification promotes growth, industrial diversification often dilutes it. • Science–industry alignment benefits advanced economies but penalises weaker ones. • GVC integration supports growth in developing economies, less critical for advanced ones.