Skills shortage has become a key policy issue in highly developed and innovation-oriented economies, with non-negligible consequences on firms' innovation activities. We investigate the effect of skills shortage on firms' innovation openness, which is considered to be one of the key drivers of...

Based on a unique survey and administrative employer-employee data, we show that the COVID-19 pandemic acted as a push factor for the diffusion of digital technologies in Germany. About two in three firms invested in digital technologies, in particular in hardware and software to enable...

Debates about the future of work frequently reference past instances of transformative innovation to preface analysis of how automation and artificial intelligence could reshape society and the economy. However, technological shifts in history are rarely considered in depth or used to improve...

The object of research is the employment in the financial sector of three countries with different levels of development – the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Ukraine. It is well known that the current stage of the industrial revolution (“Industry 4.0”) is fundamentally different from...

The technological effects of innovative regions on lagging regions' labor markets have not been yet well understood, especially in the urban-rural context. I introduce a theoretical model that yields insight into the interactions between high-technology and lagging regions. While, through...

According to the compensation theory, market forces should assure a complete compensation of the initial labour-saving impact of process innovations. In this paper a critique of this approach is proposed through a detailed survey of the theoretical and empirical literature on the subject. The...

We sketch a visionary strategy for Europe in which full employment is quickly regained by 2020, income inequality is reduced and the economies are more sustainable. We call this scenario "vibrant". It is contrasted with what would happen if present policies continue within the European Union...