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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Hjort, Jonas; Tian, Lin |
| Abstract: | Firms, workers, and consumers in developing countries are increasingly connected to each other and the rest of the world through the internet. Can this connectivity transform poor economies, as technology-optimists hope, or are there more deeply rooted barriers to economic development? Research on the topic is growing rapidly. In this article we provide an overview of existing evidence from 150 studies on the extent to which, and how, internet connectivity affects economic development. Not surprisingly, estimates vary widely with the context, particular outcome, and form of internet studied. Overall the literature points towards sizeable economic impacts in many---though not all---settings. |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19371 |
| By: | Rony, Sidharth (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, Mt Economic Research Inst on Innov/Techn) |
| Abstract: | Rapid advances in technology and events such as COVID-19 have significantly transformed the modern workplace, potentially altering the skills demanded in jobs. This study examines the evolving demand and posted-wage premia for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), interpersonal, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills in the UK labour market. Using a comprehensive dataset of online job advertisements (2016 to 2022), skills are extracted and categorised via GPT-4 zero-shot learning. Cross-sectional log-wage regressions, incorporating occupation and regional fixed effects with three-way Cameron-Gelbach-Miller clustered standard errors, reveal divergent trends in skill compensation. While interpersonal skills are ubiquitously demanded (approximately 90% of listings), they yield no significant posted-wage premium, likely reflecting their near-universal baseline requirement across postings. In contrast, ICT skills, demanded in approximately 55% of postings, carry a posted-wage premium of approximately 7%. AI skills, mentioned in approximately 3% of postings, carry a posted-wage premium of approximately 9% within the ICT-mentioning subsample. These findings document robust associational posted-wage premia for technical competencies amidst recent pandemic-induced and technological labour market shifts. |
| Keywords: | Skills, Wage premium, Machine-assisted mixed methods, big data, Large Language Model, LLM, COVID-19, AI, artifical intelligence |
| JEL: | J24 C45 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–08–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2026010 |
| By: | Eberly, Janice; Haskel, Jonathan; Mizen, Paul |
| Abstract: | The impact of an economic shock depends both on its severity and the resilience of the economic response. Resilience can include the ability to relocate factors, for example, even when new technologies or skills are not yet at the ready. This resilience buffers production and has an economic value, which we estimate. The Covid-19 pandemic caused a widespread decline in recorded GDP. Yet, as catastrophic as the collapse was, it was buffered by an unprecedented and spontaneous deployment of what we call “Potential Capital, ” the dwelling/residential capital and connective technologies used alongside working from home. Together potential capital and labor working from home provided additional output margins and capacity. We estimate the contribution of this capital, and the remote work that it facilitated, to have roughly halved the decline in GDP in the US reducing the fall in GDP to 8.2 log points in 2020Q2 at the trough of the recession. Similar effects are seen in the 13 OECD countries for which data are available, output fell by 12 log points but would have fallen by 21 log points had only workplace inputs been available. Accounting for the contribution of “Potential Capital” also revises downwards estimated total productivity gains in the business sector during the pandemic from 9 log points to 6 log points in 2020Q2. We also find the implied output elasticity of domestic capital to be close to that of paid-for ICT capital. |
| Keywords: | productivity growth; COVID-19; working from home |
| JEL: | E01 E22 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–07–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eoe:escoed:escoe-dp-2026-09 |
| By: | Rony, Sidharth (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, Mt Economic Research Inst on Innov/Techn) |
| Abstract: | Technological change has an ambiguous impact on labour market by creating demand for some skills and reducing demand of some others. Hence the relationship of demand for skills and the need for training is an empirical question. In this paper, I investigate association between types of technological change and decisions. I categorise several measures of automation on the basis of tasks (done at individual or occupation level) and technology (Software, Robot, AI) and compare their relationship with human capital investment. I find that the correlation between automation and training varies depending on the automation measure used, showing a decline with both individual- and occupation-level automation measures. However when relying on technology based measures of automation, workers exposed to older technologies (Robot, Software) receive less training with automation, while workers exposed to newer technologies (AI) receive more training with automation. The findings are consistent across workers of different age groups and skill levels. |
| Keywords: | Automation, Artificial Intelligence, Robotization, On-the-job training, PIAAC, Human Capital Investment |
| JEL: | J23 J24 M53 O33 I26 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–08–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2026009 |
| By: | George, Babu (Alcorn State University) |
| Abstract: | Transaction cost economics has long treated information technology as a force that lowers the cost of transacting and therefore shrinks firm boundaries. Generative and agentic systems break the assumption on which that prediction rests. They collapse the cost of producing an artifact without lowering, and in several documented cases while raising, the cost of establishing that the artifact is fit for use. This paper develops the consequences of that wedge. Three results follow. First, as unit production cost approaches zero and per-unit verification cost remains bounded away from zero, verification's share of total activity cost converges to one, so the make-or-buy question ceases to be about production and becomes a question about verification alone. Second, verification cannot be recursively delegated to automated verifiers whose errors are correlated with those of the generator, and residual liability cannot be assigned to agents that hold no assets and no legal personality; recent decisions in Mata v. Avianca and Moffatt v. Air Canada, together with the allocation of duties under Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, place that residual on the deploying firm. Third, the human judgments produced during verification are the scarce, distribution-specific labels required to improve a firm's own models, which makes verification simultaneously a cost and an appropriable asset. Together these mechanisms predict selective reinternalization of high-consequence knowledge work rather than the continued unbundling that the electronic markets hypothesis anticipated. The paper states six falsifiable predictions with proposed operationalizations, and identifies the conditions, principally the availability of cheap machine-checkable success criteria, under which the opposite prediction should hold. |
| Date: | 2026–07–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:yrdhg_v1 |