R&D, Embodied Technological Change and Employment: Evidence from Italian Microdata

34 Pages Posted: 14 Nov 2016

See all articles by Laura Barbieri

Laura Barbieri

Università Cattolica di Piacenza

Mariacristina Piva

Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Marco Vivarelli

Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

This paper explores the employment impact of innovation activity, taking into account both R&D expenditures and embodied technological change (ETC). We use a novel panel dataset covering 265 innovative Italian firms over the period 1998-2010. The main outcome from the proposed fixed effect estimations is a labor-friendly nature of total innovation expenditures; however, this positive effect is barely significant when the sole in-house R&D expenditures are considered and fades away when ETC is included as a proxy for innovation activities. Moreover, the positive employment impacts of innovation activities and R&D expenditures are totally due to firms operating in high-tech industries and large companies, while no job-creation due to technical change is detectable in traditional sectors and SMEs.

Keywords: technology, innovation, R&D, embodied technological change, employment

JEL Classification: O31, O33

Suggested Citation

Barbieri, Laura and Piva, Mariacristina and Vivarelli, Marco, R&D, Embodied Technological Change and Employment: Evidence from Italian Microdata. IZA Discussion Paper No. 10354, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2868320 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2868320

Laura Barbieri (Contact Author)

Università Cattolica di Piacenza ( email )

Largo Gemelli, 1
Via Necchi 9
Milan, MI 20123
Italy

Mariacristina Piva

Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore ( email )

Via Emilia Parmense, 84
Piacenza
Italy

Marco Vivarelli

Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano ( email )

Largo Gemelli 1
Milano, 20123
Italy

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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