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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2020‒05‒18
three papers chosen by Laura Ştefănescu Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Tiago Sequeira (Centre for Business and Economics CeBER and Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra); Óscar Afonso (CEF-UP, and Faculty of Economics of University of Porto) |
| Abstract: | We devise a generalized Directed Technical Change growth model in which firms spend resources in lobbying activity. As expected, the presence of lobbying distorts the skill premium and economic growth. Lobbying also contributes to a lower technological-knowledge bias toward the skill-sector and constitutes a possible explanation for the diverging empirical evidence on the relationship between the skill premium and the relative supply of skills. An increase in the relative lobbying power of the skilled intensive intermediate goods firms can lead to an increase or decrease in the skill premium, depending on the elasticity of substitution between the skilled and unskilled sectors. Lobbying also introduces possibility of a dual economy, with two different steady states, one characterized by low growth and another by high growth, depending on a threshold level of the lobbying power and on the elasticity of substitution. Quantitative exercises show that lobbying can indeed be quite important in distorting the skill premium and the economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Directed technical change; lobbying power; ineciency; economic growth; wage inequality; quantitative implications.; Directed technical change; lobbying power; ineciency; economic growth; wage inequality; quantitative implications. |
| JEL: | J31 P16 O30 O41 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gmf:papers:2020-05&r=all |
| By: | Beblavy, Miroslav; Baiocco, Sara; Kilhoffer, Zachary; Akgüç, Mehtap; Jacquot, Manon |
| Abstract: | Digitalisation – or the transformation of processes through new digital technologies – is changing the skills required to work and live, but also how we acquire, assess, and demonstrate our skills and education. This broad trend is known as the digitalisation of learning. The Index of Readiness for Digital Lifelong Learning (IRDLL) attempts to shed light on the issue by creating a scoring system and ranking EU Member States. The Index is composed of three ‘pillars’ – composite indicators developed to capture the different dimensions and challenges of digital learning: 1) Individual’s learning outcomes; 2) Availability of digital learning; and 3) Institutions and policies for digital learning. The report details the Index’s construction as well as results, alongside current trends in digitalisation of learning in Europe, providing timely policy pointers to European- and national-level policy makers. The Index of Readiness for Digital Lifelong Learning (IRDLL) is a result of collaboration between the Jobs & Skills Unit of CEPS and Grow with Google. It arose from a long-standing interest of both parties in digitalisation of education and the labour market. |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eps:cepswp:25419&r=all |
| By: | Marie Le Mouel; Alexander Schiersch |
| Abstract: | Understanding the causes of the slowdown in aggregate productivity growth is key to maintaining the competitiveness of advanced economies and ensuring long-term economic prosperity. This paper is the first to provide evidence that investment in Knowledge-Based Capital (KBC), despite having a positive effect on productivity at the micro level, is a driver of the weak productivity performance at the aggregate level, by accentuating divergence between a group of “frontier” firms and the rest of the economy. Using detailed firm-level administrative data for Germany, we find evidence that the effect of KBC on productivity is heterogeneous across firms within industries: this effect is 3 times larger for firms in the top quintile of the KBC distribution compared to firms in the bottom quintile of the KBC distribution. We document the existence of divergence in productivity growth between top KBC users and the rest of firms at the industry level, and find that industries where this gap is larger are also those industries where the heterogeneity in the effect of KBC is highest and where average productivity growth was lower. The evidence hence supports the view that the use of KBC plays a role in explaining weak productivity growth, by accentuating differences between firms. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge-Based Capital, firm dynamics, productivity divergence |
| JEL: | D24 L25 O14 O30 O47 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1868&r=all |