ABSTRACT

This paper extends and refines the concept of ICT-driven skills-biased technological change by disentangling the effects of information technologies (IT) and communication technologies (CT). Guided by the theory that IT and CT differently affect firms' production processes, we investigate the complementarities between these two distinct technologies and workers' levels of education in affecting firms' productivity. Exploiting within-firm variation between 2005 and 2017, we find that the use of IT – measured as use of business management tools – is particularly beneficial for workers with a tertiary vocational education. In contrast, CT – measured as workers' use of the intranet – is especially complementary to workers with a tertiary academic education. While consistent with the ICT-driven skills-biased technological change hypothesis, our results offer evidence on the necessity for differentiating between the effects of IT and CT on firm productivity when differently educated workers use these technologies.

摘要

本文通过分离信息技术 (IT) 和通信技术 (CT) 的影响，扩展和完善了 ICT 驱动的技能偏向技术变革的概念。在 IT 和 CT 对企业生产流程产生不同影响的理论指导下，我们研究了这两种截然不同的技术和工人教育水平在影响企业生产率方面的互补性。利用 2005 年至 2017 年公司内部的差异，我们发现 IT 的使用——作为业务管理工具的使用来衡量——对接受过高等教育的工人特别有益。相比之下，CT——以员工对内部网的使用来衡量——对受过高等教育的员工特别有帮助。