Critical and conflict materials (CCMs) are providing an important material infrastructure for recent technological shifts. Relying on text analysis of US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data, this exploratory study examines the technological and geographical linkages between technological paradigms and selected CCMs. Our descriptive analysis finds evidence of a clear association between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and CCM intensity over time, and of a striking resource–technology divide between value-creating and -extracting activities across the Global North and the Global South and their regions. The paper emphasizes the need for a more critical, spatially sensitive approach to studying resource-based technological change to expose its uneven development consequences. 

In analogy to the controversial ‘acting White’ narrative for racial achievement gaps among US children, I explore whether migrant background pupils in Europe are exposed to similar social pressure by their peers not to adopt behaviours perceived to be typical of the majority group, notably doing well in school. Leveraging comprehensive longitudinal data on classroom interactions and several proxies for academic achievement, including predetermined measures of ability, I find mixed and model-dependent evidence in support of this ‘acting native’ hypothesis in the European context.

What happens to local communities when manufacturing disappears? I examine changes in associational density over nearly two decades as a proxy for social capital in US labor markets. Exploiting plausibly exogenous trade-induced shocks to local manufacturing activity, I test whether deindustrialization is associated with greater or lower organizational membership. I uncover a robust negative relationship between the two variables, particularly acute in rural and mostly-White areas. My findings, however, are sensitive to measurement: There are no clearly discernible effects of deindustrialization on social capital when I consider alternative proxies for the outcome. To reconcile these results, I present evidence suggesting that economic adversity may induce a qualitative, rather than quantitative, change in social capital.

I study the role of social networks in the propagation of economic shocks across space. Combining comprehensive data on US online friendships with extraction activity during the fracking boom, I show that exogenous changes in economic conditions in one area affect outcomes in socially proximate places, regardless of how far apart they are geographically. Social exposure to fracking generates a wage spillover amounting to one-third of every dollar of energy produced in a county’s social network. This spillover decays slowly in space and is associated with a large mobility response. Diffusion mainly stems from the commuting of transient fracking workers.

Do students benefit differently from interacting with similar and diverse peers? Using register-linked survey data from a stratified sample of Swedish classrooms I test whether endogenous peer effects in student achievement are heterogeneous by immigrant status. My empirical strategy combines instrumental variables, classroom fixed effects, and a control function to identify the parameter of interest separately from contextual and correlated effects. In particular, by considering partially overlapping networks of peers and family members, I use peers’ parents’ education as instruments for peer behaviour. My findings suggest that endogenous effects are limited to interactions with native peers only, but benefit both native and migrant students. High-ability children of migrants appear to be particularly vulnerable to friendship segregation.

Do informal social ties connecting inventors across distant places promote knowledge flows between them? To measure informal ties, we use a new and direct index of social connectedness of regions based on aggregate Facebook friendships. We use a well-established identification strategy that relies on matching inventor citations with citations from examiners. Moreover, we isolate the specific effect of informal connections, above and beyond formal professional ties (co-inventor networks) and geographic proximity. We identify a significant and robust effect of informal ties on patent citations. Further, we find that the effect of geographic proximity on knowledge flows is entirely explained by informal social ties and professional networks. We also show that the effect of informal social ties on knowledge flows is greater for new entrepreneurs or ‘garage inventors’, for older or ‘forgotten’ patents, and for flows across distant technology fields. It has also become increasingly important over the last two decades.

Many regions in Europe are stuck in a development trap and face significant structural challenges in retrieving past dynamism or improving prosperity for their residents. This column conceptualises what constitutes a development trap at a regional level in Europe and identifies which regions have been trapped or at risk of becoming trapped in recent years. Regional development traps can arise at many different levels of income. Springing these traps would improve overall European competitiveness and help quell the discontent and resentment of citizens living in these areas. 

The concept of regional development trap refers to regions that face significant structural challenges in retrieving past dynamism or improving prosperity for their residents. This article introduces and measures the concept of the regional development trap for regions in Europe. The concept draws inspiration from the middle-income trap in international development theory but widens it to shed light on traps in higher-income countries and at the regional scale. We propose indicators—involving the economic, productivity, and employment performance of regions relative to themselves in the immediate past, and to other regions in their respective countries and elsewhere in Europe—to identify regions either in a development trap or at significant near-term risk of falling into it. Regions facing development traps generate economic, social, and political risks at the national scale but also for Europe as a whole. 

The mining of several critical raw materials – including the so-called ‘conflict minerals’ associated witharmed conflict and human rights abuses – and their combination, refining and use in many newadvanced electronic products, are providing an important material infrastructure to currenttechnological progress. Relying on text analysis of USPTO patent data between 1976 and 2017, ourexplorative study provides a methodological and empirical starting point for exploring thetechnological and geographical linkages between technological paradigms and selected critical andconflict materials (CCMs). Our descriptive analysis finds evidence of a clear association between ICTtechnologies and CCM intensity over time, and of a striking resource-technology divide in global ICTvalue chains between value creating and value extracting activities across Global North and GlobalSouth and their regions. The paper intends to emphasize the need for a more critical, spatially sensitiveapproach to studying resource-based technological change to expose the uneven developmentconsequences created, sustained, or mitigated by technological progress