Techies, Trade, and Skill-Biased Productivity

James Harrigan, Ariell Reshef and Farid Toubal

No 25295, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study the impact of firm level choices of ICT, R&D, exporting and importing on the evolution of productivity, its bias towards skilled workers, and the implications for labor demand. We use a novel measure of firm-level technology: firms' employment of workers in occupations related to R&D and ICT adoption, who we call “techies”. We develop a methodology for estimating nested CES production functions at the firm level, which allows us to measure both Hicks-neutral and skill-augmenting technology differences. Using administrative data on French firms we find that techies, exporting and importing raise skill-biased productivity. In contrast, only ICT techies raise Hicks-neutral productivity. On average, higher firm-level skill biased productivity does not affect low-skill employment even as it raises the ratio of skilled to unskilled workers, due to the cost-reducing effect of higher productivity. ICT techies account for large increases in aggregate demand for skill, mostly due to their effect on firm size, less so through within-firm changes. Exporting, importing, and R&D techies have smaller aggregate effects.

JEL-codes: D2 D24 F1 F16 F60 F66 J2 J23 J24 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-lma and nep-tid
Note: ITI LS PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Techies, Trade, and Skill-Biased Productivity (2021)
Working Paper: Techies, Trade, and Skill-Biased Productivity (2021)
Working Paper: Techies, Trade and Skill-Biased Productivity (2021)
Working Paper: Techies, Trade, and Skill-Biased Productivity (2021)
Working Paper: Techies, Trade and Skill-Biased Productivity (2021)
Working Paper: Techies, Trade, and Skill-Biased Productivity (2018)
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