Customised products and services, flexible working arrangements, productivity growth, and increasing prosperity - these are just some of the advantages promised by a digitised and connected economy. Business managers and politicians are keen to reap the potential benefits of the digital...

The paper provides empirical evidence for the question whether firms' ITenabled labour productivity is affected by the age structure of the workforce. We apply a production function approach with heterogenous labour to firmlevel data from German manufacturing and services industries. We find...

The paper analyses the relationship between two major challenges firms are faced to: using the potentials of information technologies (IT) as an enabler of process innovations on the one hand and an ageing workforce that might interfere these potentials on the other hand. Econometric results...

Using a unique German firm-level data set, we provide empirical evidence for a productivity sorting along two dimensions: international activity and technology choice. We consider domestic and exporting firms and measure technology choice by firms' actual use of advanced information technology...

Recent developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) and the growth of emerging economies such as China and India have not only increased international trade but have also led to offshoring of activities away from Europe. A firm's decision to move production away from Europe...

Do firms sourcing out IT services redirect their resources to innovation activity? We attempt to answer this question by analysing a firm-level data set comprising 1453 firms from the German manufacturing and services sectors. Using different measures of IT outsourcing (ITO), the econometric...