IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sls/ipmsls/v37y20192.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Digitalization and Productivity: In Search of the Holy Grail - Firm-level Empirical Evidence from European Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Gal
  • Giuseppe Nicoletti
  • Christina von Rüden
  • Stéphane Sorbe
  • Théodore Renault

Abstract

This article assesses how the adoption of a range of digital technologies affects firm productivity. It combines cross-country firm-level data on productivity and industry-level data on digital technology adoption in an empirical framework that accounts for firm heterogeneity. The results provide robust evidence that digital adoption in an industry is associated to productivity gains at the firm level. Effects are relatively stronger in manufacturing and routine-intensive activities. They also tend to be stronger for more productive firms and weaker in the presence of skill shortages, which may relate to the complementarities between digital technologies and other forms of capital (e.g. skills, organisation, or intangibles). As a result, digital technologies may have contributed to the growing dispersion in productivity performance across firms. Hence, policies to support digital adoption should go hand in hand with creating the conditions to enable the catch-up of lagging firms, notably by easing access to skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Gal & Giuseppe Nicoletti & Christina von Rüden & Stéphane Sorbe & Théodore Renault, 2019. "Digitalization and Productivity: In Search of the Holy Grail - Firm-level Empirical Evidence from European Countries," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 37, pages 39-71, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:37:y:2019:2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csls.ca/ipm/37/OECD.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Papaioannou, Sotiris K., 2023. "ICT and economic resilience: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    2. Stefano Costa & Federico Sallusti & Claudio Vicarelli & Davide Zurlo, 2021. "Italian firms in times of troubles: Covid-19 pandemic as a test of structural solidity," LEM Papers Series 2021/47, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    3. Zoran Aralica & Bruno Skrinjaric, 2021. "Adoption of digital and ICT technologies and firms’ productivity," Working Papers 2102, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.
    4. Dimitris Gavalas & Theodoros Syriopoulos & Efthimios Roumpis, 2022. "Digital adoption and efficiency in the maritime industry," Journal of Shipping and Trade, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Nathalie Greenan & Silvia Napolitano, 2021. "Why Do Employees Participate in Innovation? Skills and Organisational Design Issues and the Ongoing Technological Transformation," Working Papers halshs-03270141, HAL.
    6. Gilbert Cette & Sandra Nevoux & Loriane Py, 2022. "The impact of ICTs and digitalization on productivity and labor share: evidence from French firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(8), pages 669-692, November.
    7. Silvia Muzi & Filip Jolevski & Kohei Ueda & Domenico Viganola, 2023. "Productivity and firm exit during the COVID-19 crisis: cross-country evidence," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 1719-1760, April.
    8. Alexander Salmen, 2021. "New Product Launch Success: A Literature Review," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 69(1), pages 151-176.
    9. Zhai, Huayun & Yang, Min & Chan, Kam C., 2022. "Does digital transformation enhance a firm's performance? Evidence from China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Nucci, Francesco & Puccioni, Chiara & Ricchi, Ottavio, 2023. "Digital technologies and productivity: A firm-level investigation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    11. Doerr, S. & Erdem, M. & Franco, G. & Gambacorta, L. & Illes, A., 2021. "Technological capacity and firms’ recovery from Covid-19," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    12. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Stocker, Volker, 2020. "Bedeutung digitaler Infrastrukturen und Dienste und Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Resilienz in Krisenzeiten," Policy Notes 42, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Erik Canton & Federica Colasanti & Jorge Durán & Maria Garrone & Alexandr Hobza & Wouter Simons & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2021. "The Sectoral Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis. An Unprecedented and Atypical Crisis," European Economy - Economic Briefs 069, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    14. Yasin Yilmaz, 2021. "Transition to the Digital Economy, Its Measurement and the Relationship between Digitalization and Productivity," Istanbul Journal of Economics-Istanbul Iktisat Dergisi, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 71(1), pages 283-316, June.
    15. Claudio Battiati & Cecilia Jona-Lasinio & Silvia Sopranzetti, 2020. "Productivity growth and global value chain participation in the digital age," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2020-04, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    16. Chen, Wen & Wu, Weili & Zhang, Tonghui, 2023. "Fintech development, firm digitalization, and bank loan pricing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    17. Schubert, Torben & Ashouri, Sajad & Deschryvere, Matthias & Jäger, Angela & Visentin, Fabiana & Cunningham, Scott & Hajikhani, Arash & Pukelis, Lukas & Suominen, Arho, 2023. "The role of product digitization for productivity," MERIT Working Papers 2023-004, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    18. Parteka, Aleksandra & Kordalska, Aleksandra, 2023. "Artificial intelligence and productivity: global evidence from AI patent and bibliometric data," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. repec:gdk:wpaper:67 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Garnadt, Niklas & von Rueden, Christina & Thiel, Esther, 2021. "Labour reallocation dynamics in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic and past recessions," Working Papers 08/2021, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    21. repec:gdk:wpaper:68 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Raphaela Andres & Timothy DeStefano & Thomas Niebel & Steffen Viete, 2020. "Capital incentive policies in the age of cloud computing: An empirical case study," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2020/07, OECD Publishing.
    23. Maryann P. Feldman & Serden Ozcan & Toke Reichstein, 2021. "Variation in organizational practices: are startups really different?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 1-31, January.
    24. Dolores Añon Higón & Juan A. Daniel Bonvin, 2023. "Do digitalization spurs SMEs’ participation in foreign markets?," Working Papers 2307, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Innovation; Digital economy; Technology adoption; Skills;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sls:ipmsls:v:37:y:2019:2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CSLS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cslssca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.