The present paper elaborates an empirical study of the knowledge base of 285 industrial sectors in the United States (US) over the period 2002-2012. While much of the existing research on the dynamics of industrial sectors is built on aggregate characteristics, this paper focuses on the repertoires of skills that workers use when performing job tasks (Autor, 2013). Our goal is to elaborate a network analysis of how different forms of know-how characterise industrial sectors by addressing three key questions:
(1) What are the structural properties of skill combinations embedded in the occupations of industrial sectors?
(2) What patterns of skill specialization and diversification emerge?
(3) What is the relation between these network properties and indicators of economic performance such as productivity?