IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ete/msiper/654659.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The growing digital divide in Europe and the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Désirée Rückert
  • Reinhilde Veugelers
  • Christoph Weiss

Abstract

Using a new survey on digitalisation activities of firms in the EU and the US, we identify digitalisation profiles based on the current use of digital technologies and future investment plans in digitalisation. Our analysis confirms the trend toward digital polarisation and a growing digital divide in the corporate landscape with, on one side, many firms that are not digitally active, and on the other side, a substantial number of digitally active firms forging ahead. Old small firms, with less than 50 employees and more than 10 years old, are significantly more likely to be persistently digitally non-active. We show that these persistently non-digital firms are less likely to be innovative, increase employment or command higher mark-ups. These trends are likely to exacerbate the digital divide across firms in the EU and the US.

Suggested Citation

  • Désirée Rückert & Reinhilde Veugelers & Christoph Weiss, 2020. "The growing digital divide in Europe and the United States," Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven 654659, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven.
  • Handle: RePEc:ete:msiper:654659
    Note: paper number MSI_2007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/576180
    File Function: Published version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2020. "The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms [“Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 645-709.
    2. Mr. Federico J Diez & Mr. Daniel Leigh & Suchanan Tambunlertchai, 2018. "Global Market Power and its Macroeconomic Implications," IMF Working Papers 2018/137, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Jan De Loecker & Jan Eeckhout & Gabriel Unger, 2020. "The Rise of Market Power and the Macroeconomic Implications [“Econometric Tools for Analyzing Market Outcomes”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 561-644.
    4. Sara Calligaris & Chiara Criscuolo & Luca Marcolin, 2018. "Mark-ups in the digital era," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2018/10, OECD Publishing.
    5. Reinhilde Veugelers, 2018. "Are European firms falling behind in the global corporate research race?," Policy Contributions 25100, Bruegel.
    6. Dan Andrews & Chiara Criscuolo & Peter N. Gal, 2016. "The Best versus the Rest: The Global Productivity Slowdown, Divergence across Firms and the Role of Public Policy," OECD Productivity Working Papers 5, OECD Publishing.
    7. Reinhilde Veugelers & Annalisa Ferrando & Senad Lekpek & Christoph T. Weiss, 2019. "Young SMEs as a Motor of Europe’s Innovation Machine," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 54(6), pages 369-377, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Björn Döhring & Atanas Hristov & Christoph Maier & Werner Roeger & Anna Thum-Thysen, 2021. "COVID-19 acceleration in digitalisation, aggregate productivity growth and the functional income distribution," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 571-604, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vallés, Javier & Salas Fumás, Vicente & San Juan, Lucio, 2022. "Corporate economic profits in the euro area: The relevance of cost competitive advantage," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 569-585.
    2. Maarten de Ridder, 2022. "Market power and innovation in the intangible economy," POID Working Papers 064, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Joze Damijan & Jozef Konings & Aigerim Yergabulova, 2020. "Increasing market power in Slovenia: Role of diverging trends between exporters and non‐exporters," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 1327-1345, May.
    4. Alessandro Ferrari & Francisco Queirós, 2021. "Firm Heterogeneity, Market Power and Macroeconomic Fragility," CSEF Working Papers 627, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    5. van Heuvelen, Gerrit Hugo & Bettendorf, Leon & Meijerink, Gerdien, 2021. "Markups in a dual labour market: The case of the Netherlands," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Akcigit, Ufuk & Akgunduz, Yusuf Emre & Cilasun, Seyit Mumin & Ozcan-Tok, Elif & Yilmaz, Fatih, 2020. "Facts on business dynamism in Turkey," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    7. Mr. Federico J Diez & Jiayue Fan & Carolina Villegas-Sánchez, 2019. "Global Declining Competition," IMF Working Papers 2019/082, International Monetary Fund.
    8. , & Stiebale, Joel & Woessner, Nicole, 2020. "Robots and the rise of European superstar firms," CEPR Discussion Papers 15080, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Cavalleri, Maria Chiara & Eliet, Alice & McAdam, Peter & Petroulakis, Filippos & Soares, Ana & Vansteenkiste, Isabel, 2019. "Concentration, market power and dynamism in the euro area," Working Paper Series 2253, European Central Bank.
    10. Naudé, Wim, 2020. "From the Entrepreneurial to the Ossified Economy: Evidence, Explanations and a New Perspective," GLO Discussion Paper Series 539, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Bonfiglioli, Alessandra & Crinò, Rosario & Gancia, Gino, 2021. "Concentration in international markets: Evidence from US imports," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 19-39.
    12. Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina & Díez, Federico & Fan, Jiayue, 2019. "Global Declining Competition," CEPR Discussion Papers 13696, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Weche John P. & Wagner Joachim, 2021. "Markups and Concentration in the Context of Digitization: Evidence from German Manufacturing Industries," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 241(5-6), pages 667-699, November.
    14. Matej Bajgar & Giuseppe Berlingieri & Sara Calligaris & Chiara Criscuolo & Jonathan Timmis, 2019. "Industry concentration in Europe and North America," CEP Discussion Papers dp1654, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Naudé, Wim, 2019. "The decline in entrepreneurship in the West: Is complexity ossifying the economy?," MERIT Working Papers 2019-030, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    16. de Ridder, Maarten, 2019. "Market power and innovation in the intangible economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100946, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Díez, Federico J. & Fan, Jiayue & Villegas-Sánchez, Carolina, 2021. "Global declining competition?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    18. Harro van Heuvelen & Leon Bettendorf & Gerdien Meijerink, 2020. "Markups in a dual labour market: the case of the Netherlands," CPB Discussion Paper 410.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    19. Ensar Yılmaz & Zeynep Kaplan, 2022. "Heterogeneity of market power: firm-level evidence," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 1207-1228, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    digital technology; investment; firm performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ete:msiper:654659. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: library EBIB (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://feb.kuleuven.be/MSI .

    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.