Abstract
Owing to recent developments and implications inspired by 4IR technologies in the global manufacturing sector through the I4.0 concept, this study was conducted to discover the I4.0 impacts on the South African manufacturing sector. Stats SA (2023) notes that about 11,400 organizations, licensed for VAT, contribute to South Africa's manufacturing sector. To the best of our knowledge, no study has analysed the cointegrating and long-run impacts of I4.0 on the South African manufacturing sector. Therefore, this study attempts to bridge this gap using the ARDL model since justifies a combination of stationary and nonstationary variables without requiring the order of integration to be recalculated. The study additionally estimates the DOLS and FMOLS models to account for endogeneity, small sample bias, serial correlation, heterogeneity and given the existence of long-run relationships among variables, MVA, I4.0, carbon dioxide emissions, FDI, and inflation. This was due to the fact that preliminary assessments for unit-roots and cointegration indicated that the variables were non-stationary and cointegrated. The VECM model was used to calculate the causality relationship. The CDM proved useful for graphically displaying the impact relationships among the variables. The data used for the study’s analysis were sourced from WDI (2023), and quarterly data were utilised from 2000Q1–2020Q4. The study’s analysis discovered a significant but negative relationship between I4.0 and South Africa’s MVA and therefore the policy implications advised was that South Africa heavily invests in advanced education, ICT, medium and high technology exploration and high technology (high-tech) implementation because these variables served as the principal component for the I4.0 variable. The study also showed: positive relationship between carbon dioxide and MVA, short and long-run significant impact of FDI on MVA and long-run relationship between inflation and MVA.