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This papers aims to identify and explain the differences in information and communications technologies (ICT) adoption for a sample of 142 developed and developing countries. In addition, we examine the relationships between specific combinations of technologies and the factors explaining them. Although income is a key factor for all country groups, its role is more significant for middle-digitalization countries. Using several multivariate techniques, we detect different patterns of digitalization. The patterns are explained to differing degrees by the type of country, by differences in economic development, and by socio-demographic and institutional variables. Factors such as quality of regulation and infrastructure explain ICT adoption in high-income countries. The ICT combination associated with specific income groups as well as the explanatory variables detected for each of them might be useful to implement the most appropriate policy actions to reduce the digital divide.

The increase in foreign direct investments raises concerns about labor market consequences in many countries. It is feared that multinational firms are inclined to shift jobs abroad and increase job volatility. We use firm-level data to examine if multinationality and foreign ownership affect the wage elasticity of labor demand. Unlike previous studies, we distinguish the effect on different skill groups of employees. We find no general difference in wage elasticity between foreign and domestic firms but the wage elasticity is higher in multinational firms than in national firms, in particular for medium-skilled workers.

This paper presents empirical evidence of the effect of FDI inflows on productivity convergence in central and eastern Europe, using industry-level data. Four conclusions stand out. First, there is a strong convergence effect in productivity, both at the country and at the industry level. Second, FDI inflow plays an important role in accounting for productivity growth. Third, the impact of FDI on productivity critically depends on the absorptive capacity of recipient countries and industries. Fourth, there is important heterogeneity across countries, industries and time with respect to some of the main findings. JEL Classification: C23, F21, O33

We consider the impact of the 2004 EU enlargement on enterprise performance and the exporting behavior of German service enterprises in Germany’s eastern border region. Our results from regression adjusted difference-in-differences estimators combined with matching and panel data from official statistics suggest that the EU enlargement had a negative impact on the turnover and export intensity of large enterprises in the border region. For small enterprises, we find an annual increase in turnover by 2.3% in 2004 and an annual decrease in profitability by 1.5 and 1.9 percentage points in 2004 and 2005, respectively.

We study the impact of trade on productivity using Chilean plant-level data (1982-1999). Our contribution is to disentangle the impact of export and import barriers. Firstly, we estimate the production functions to obtain plant TFP. Secondly, we estimate trade barriers (border effects) between Chile and its trading partners at the industry level and over time. Finally, we test the impact of trade barriers by regressing productivity on border effect estimates. A fall in export barriers improves productivity in traded sectors, while the reduction of import barriers might foster productivity in export industries but it hurts firms in import-competing ones., Ce travail étudie l'impact des réformes commerciales chiliennes sur l'évolution de la productivité des établissements manufacturiers. Nous utilisons des données de panel micro sur la période 1979-2000. La principale contribution du papier consiste en la construction et l'utilisation de deux types de mesures de la libéralisation commerciale pour distinguer les difficultés à l'exportation et à l'importation. Nous estimons d'abord la productivité totale de facteurs au niveau des établissements en tenant compte de l'hétérogénéité intrinsèque des firmes qui évolue au cours du temps. Ensuite, à l'aide des équations de gravité nous estimons pour chaque industrie les effets des frontières entre le Chili et ses principaux partenaires. Enfin nous estimons l'impact de la libéralisation du commerce extérieur en utilisant les mesures estimées dans l'étape précédente. Nous trouvons que la réduction des difficultés à l'exportation a un effet positif sur la productivité dans les secteurs exposés au commerce relativement aux secteurs abrités. Par ailleurs, par rapport à ces derniers, les firmes appartenant aux secteurs exportateurs augmentent leur productivité à la suite d'une réduction des barrières à l'importation. Ce n'est pas le cas pour les firmes opérant dans les secteurs en concurrence avec les biens d'importations dans les quels les estimations des fonctions des productions révèlent des rendements croissants.

This paper studies the impact of outsourcing on individual wages in three European countries with markedly different labour market institutions: Germany, the UK and Denmark. To do so we use individual level data sets for the three countries and construct comparable measures of outsourcing at the industry level, distinguishing outsourcing by broad region. Estimating the same specification on different data shows that there are some interesting differences in the effect of outsourcing across countries. We discuss some possible reasons for these differences based on labour market institutions.