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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.

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Abstract This paper assesses Brazil's real convergence (1822–2019) through unit root tests and Markov Regime-Switching (MS) models in three different scenarios: towards (i) other six Latin American countries (LA6); (ii) Portugal; and (iii) the technological frontier country, the US. The extended unit root test results favour Brazil's very long-run real convergence towards LA6 and Portugal, but not the US. The estimated MS models, involving two different regimes, real convergence and real non-convergence/divergence, capture institutional quality's positive effect in promoting Brazil's real convergence.

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PurposeRefugee entrepreneurship is increasingly viewed as a silver bullet being able to promote host countries' economic performance and enable the successful integration of refugees. This study aims to identify the main determinants of entrepreneurial intentions of refugees in Portugal based on the underdog theory.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the authors scrutinize the entrepreneurial intentions of refugees living in Portugal, an overlooked context, using a purpose-built inquiry responded to by 41 refugees and resorting to fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, complemented with partial least squares path modeling.FindingsSome important results are worth highlighting: the entrepreneurial intentions of the respondent sample of refugees living in Portugal are high; the theoretical arguments underlying the underdog or challenge-based entrepreneurship theory are validated in the context of the respondent sample; and psychological related factors associated with the more standard explanations of entrepreneurial intentions constitute necessary conditions for high refugee entrepreneurial intentions.Originality/valueEntrepreneurial intentions to launch a business have been discussed in the entrepreneurship literature vastly, but it has not yet received much attention when focusing on refugees, often identified as underdogs (potential) entrepreneurs. This study contributes to the literature by testing the challenge-based entrepreneurship theory to identify the primary factors influencing refugee entrepreneurial intentions.

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