What drives investment in automation technologies? This paper documents a positive relationship between labor-friendly institutions and investment in in- dustrial robots in a sample of developing and advanced economies. Institutions explain a substantial share of cross-country variation in...

The interplay between labor institutions and the firm-level adoption of new technologies such as robotics and other advanced digital tools remains poorly understood. Using a cross-sectional sample of more than 20000 European establishments, this paper documents a positive association between...

This paper investigates the impact of firm-level collective bargaining on firms' investment in intangible assets and, specifically R&D. While standard hold-up theories predict a negative effect of organized labour on intangible investments, the inclusion of pay-for-performance schemes in...

This paper addresses, both theoretically and empirically, the sectoral patterns of job creation and job destruction in order to distinguish the alternative effects of embodied vs disembodied technological change operating into a vertically connected economy. Disembodied technological change...

We analyze the effects of R&D-driven automation on economic growth, education, and inequality when high-skilled workers are complements to machines and low-skilled workers are substitutes for machines. The model predicts that innovation-driven growth leads to an increasing population share of...

New processes significantly affect firms and workers; however, due to a lack of quantitative indicators, our understanding of the measures, determinants, and impacts of new processes remains limited. Drawing on unique data from Pakistan, we analyzed five different measures of process innovation...

There is a momentous debate on the role played by financial technology (fintech) innovation in the fragility of the banking sector. Considering the importance of financial solidness, contradictory theoretical predictions and empirical evidence, the in-depth re-investigation of this relation is...

The lack of awareness of digital services and outcomes is a concern in business environments since small firms need to improve their digital competencies. The present exploratory study investigated whether business apps training was associated with entrepreneurs' and firms' digital advancements....

We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R&D, innovation, and productivity for different...

This contribution reviews the rich interdisciplinary literature covering the relationship between the diffusion of COVID-19 and the adoption of technologies in various sectors of the economy, ranging from health care facilities to manufacturing companies. Besides covering the technical and...