The effects of the Industry 4.0 revolution on economic growth and development

People living in this digital age have started to face many changes in their economic and social lifes. Therefore, the Industry 4.0, which has the potential to affect economic life in such a way, is extremely important for the whole world and is an interdisciplinary issue that concerns many areas, not only the economy. The limitation of the study is that it evaluates Industry 4.0 only with an economic approach. This study has aimed to investigate the effects of Industry 4.0 revolution on the phenomenon of economic growth and development using the panel data analysis method on the basis of 18 countries with strategies and targets for Industry 4.0 in general. In this study, three different types of econometric models were established and the annual data set for the period 2000-2019 was used to estimate the models. According to the findings of the study, human capital has proven to be necessary for industry 4.0 of contribution to gross domestic product per capita (GDP). In this study, the variables representing Industry 4.0 are patent applications, medium and high technology exports and information communication technology exports. As a result, it is understood that Industry 4.0 will generally show its effects more in the long term, but it will also give signals of these effects in the short term.