Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle

Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John van Reenen

American Economic Review, 2012, vol. 102, issue 1, 167-201

Abstract: US productivity growth accelerated after 1995 (unlike Europe's), particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). Using two new micro panel datasets we show that US multinationals operating in Europe also experienced a "productivity miracle." US multinationals obtained higher productivity from IT than non-US multinationals, particularly in the same sectors responsible for the US productivity acceleration. Furthermore, establishments taken over by US multinationals (but not by non-US multinationals) increased the productivity of their IT. Combining pan-European firm-level IT data with our management practices survey, we find that the US IT related productivity advantage is primarily due to its tougher "people management" practices. (JEL D24, E23, F23, M10, M16, O30)

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (502)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.102.1.167 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/feb2012/20090879_data.zip dataset accompanying article (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Americans do I.T. better: US multinationals and the productivity miracle (2011)
Working Paper: Americans Do I.T. Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle (2007)
Working Paper: Americans Do I.T. Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle (2007)
Working Paper: Americans Do I.T. Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:1:p:167-201

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().