Returns to ICT skills

Oliver Falck, Alexandra Heimisch-Röcker and Simon Wiederhold ()

No 2016/5, Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB)

Abstract: How important is mastering information and communication technologies (ICT) in modern labor markets? We present the first evidence on this question, drawing on unique data that provide internationally comparable information on ICT skills in 19 countries. Our identification strategy relies on the idea that Internet access is important in the formation of ICT skills, and we implement instrumental-variable models that leverage exogenous variation in Internet availability across countries and across German municipalities. ICT skills are substantially rewarded in the labor market: returns are at 8 percent for a one-standard-deviation increase in ICT skills in the international analysis and are almost twice as large in Germany. Placebo estimations show that exogenous Internet availability cannot explain numeracy or literacy skills, suggesting that our identifying variation is independent of a person’s general ability. Our results further suggest that the proliferation of computers complements workers in executing abstract tasks that require ICT skills.

Keywords: ICT skills; broadband; earnings; international comparisons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 K23 L96 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 78 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Returns to ICT skills (2021)
Working Paper: Returns to ICT Skills (2016)
Working Paper: Returns to ICT Skills (2016)
Working Paper: Returns to ICT Skills (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2016-5

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