The role of human capital for AI adoption: evidence from French firms

Luca Fontanelli, Flavio Calvino, Chiara Criscuolo, Lionel Nesta and Elena Verdolini

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We leverage a uniquely comprehensive combination of data sources to explore the enabling role of human capital in fostering the adoption of predictive AI systems in French firms. Using a causal estimation approach, we show that ICT engineers play a key role for AI adoption by firms. Our estimates indicate that raising the current average share of ICT engineers in firms not using AI (1.66%) to the level of AI users (6.7%) would increase their probability to adopt AI by 0.81 percentage points - equivalent to an 8.43 percent growth. However, this would imply substantial investments to fill the existing gap in ICT human capital, amounting to around 450.000 additional ICT engineers. We also explore potential mechanisms, showing that the relevance of ICT engineers for predictive AI is driven by the innovative nature of its use, make-vs-buy choices, large availability of data, ICT and R&D intensity.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; human capital; technological diffusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2024-11-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain, nep-ict, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/126787/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The role of human capital for AI adoption: Evidence from French firms (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:126787

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