Exploring the role of digital technological relatedness for regional diversification into complex green technologies

We shift attention to the development of green technologies in European regions, aiming to unveil the role played by digital knowledge in facilitating green diversification. Conceptually drawing on the literature on evolutionary economic geography, we construct indicators capturing different types of digital technological relatedness at the level of European regions drawn from regionalised patent data. By estimating a spatially lagged logit model (SLX), we find that related pre-existing digital technologies matter more for green than for non-green diversification. Further, while the existence of related digital technologies encourages regional development into complex green domains, our results suggest that regions do not rely on digital knowledge when diversifying into non-complex green technologies.