The Impact of Digitalization Policies. Evidence from Italy�s Hyper-depreciation of Industry 4.0 Investments

Barbara Bratta, Livio Romano, Paolo Acciari and Francesca Mazzolari
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Francesca Mazzolari: Confindustria

Working Papers from Ministry of Economy and Finance, Department of Finance

Abstract: This paper investigates the role played by hyper-depreciation of tangible assets, a fiscal incentive introduced for the first time by the Italian Government in 2017, in sustaining private investments in advanced digital technologies, and, indirectly, in affecting firms� labor demand. By making use of a unique firm-level dataset that links administrative records on tax returns and job flows with information from company balance-sheets, the paper addresses the following questions: what was the take-up of the fiscal incentive in its first year of implementation? What are the characteristics of recipient firms? What is the impact of subsidized investments on firms� hirings and separations? Overall, the results of the analysis suggest that hyper-depreciation has been so far an effective means to support the digital technology trasformation of the Italian production system and that such transformation has had a positive net effect

Keywords: digitalization; innovation policy; labor demand; skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O25 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc and nep-ino
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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