Creative Disruption: Technology Innovation, Labour Demand and the Pandemic

Erling Barth, Alex Bryson and Harald Dale-Olsen ()
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Harald Dale-Olsen: Institute for Social Research, Oslo

No 15762, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We utilize a new survey on Norwegian firms' digitalization and technology investments, linked to population-wide register data, to show that the pandemic massively disrupted the technology investment plans of firms, not only postponing investments, but also introducing new technologies. More productive firms innovated, while less productive firms postponed investments. Most innovations were permanent, not due to acceleration of existing plans, thus the pandemic yields longterm influence in directions unanticipated before the pandemic. The new technologies are associated with increased labour demand for skilled workers, and reduced demand for unskilled workers, particularly for the more productive firms.

Keywords: technology investments; digitalization; labour demand; pandemic; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 D24 F14 L11 L60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2022-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Creative Disruption – Technology innovation, labour demand and the pandemic (2022)
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