Digital adoption during COVID-19: Cross-country evidence from microdata

Flavio Calvino, Chiara Criscuolo and Antonio Ughi

No 2024/03, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented global economic downturn, affecting productivity, business dynamics, and digital technology adoption. Using a comprehensive commercial database from Spiceworks Ziff Davis, this study analyses the firm-level drivers of digitalisation during the pandemic across 20 European countries. The findings show that a considerable share of firms introduced new digital technologies during the COVID-19 crisis. Notably, firms that were larger, more digitalised, and more productive before the pandemic were more likely to introduce new digital technologies in 2020 and 2021. Additionally, firms with pre-existing complementary technologies had a higher likelihood of adopting digital applications that gained momentum during the pandemic (such as digital commerce, collaborative software, cloud, and analytics). These patterns may increase polarisation among the best-performing firms and the rest of the business population. Public policy can play a key role in fostering an inclusive digital transformation in the post-pandemic era.

Keywords: COVID-19; Digitalisation; Productivity; Technology adoption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-04-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eec, nep-ent, nep-eur, nep-mac, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2024/03-en

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