IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v34y2020i1p48-62..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Poor Countries Really Need More IT?

Author

Listed:
  • Maya Eden
  • Paul Gaggl

Abstract

Productivity differences across countries are often attributed to differences in technological capabilities. This paper asks whether there are systematic cross-country differences in the adoption of information technologies (IT). We document a positive correlation between IT use and income, which weakens over time. However, given that IT use is an endogenous outcome of both technological capabilities and the abundance of complementary factors of production, it tends to over-state the degree of cross-country differences in technology. We propose two novel calibration approaches to address this problem. After accounting for endogenous differences in industrial composition, we find that there is no systematic relationship between income and IT capabilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Maya Eden & Paul Gaggl, 2020. "Do Poor Countries Really Need More IT?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(1), pages 48-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:34:y:2020:i:1:p:48-62.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhy022
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maya Eden & Paul Gaggl, 2018. "On the Welfare Implications of Automation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 15-43, July.
    2. Paul Gaggl & Greg C. Wright, 2017. "A Short-Run View of What Computers Do: Evidence from a UK Tax Incentive," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 262-294, July.
    3. Mary O'Mahony & Marcel P. Timmer, 2009. "Output, Input and Productivity Measures at the Industry Level: The EU KLEMS Database," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(538), pages 374-403, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Piotr Lewandowski & Albert Park & Simone Schotte, 2020. "The global distribution of routine and non-routine work," IBS Working Papers 06/2020, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    2. Hernan Winkler & Vincenzo Di Maro & Kelly Montoya & Sergio Olivieri & Emmanuel Vazquez, 2024. "Measuring Green Jobs: A New Database for Latin America and Other Regions," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0335, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    3. Lewandowski, Piotr & Keister, Roma & Hardy, Wojciech & Górka, Szymon, 2020. "Ageing of routine jobs in Europe," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(4).
    4. Finkelstein Shapiro, Alan & Mandelman, Federico S., 2021. "Digital adoption, automation, and labor markets in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Maya Eden & Paul Gaggl, 2018. "On the Welfare Implications of Automation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 15-43, July.
    6. Rica, Sara De La & Gortazar, Lucas & Lewandowski, Piotr, 2020. "Job Tasks and Wages in Developed Countries: Evidence from PIAAC," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. Piotr Lewandowski & Albert Park & Wojciech Hardy & Yang Du & Saier Wu, 2022. "Technology, Skills, and Globalization: Explaining International Differences in Routine and Nonroutine Work Using Survey Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 36(3), pages 687-708.
    8. Marta Palczynska, 2018. "Wage premia for skills: The complementarity of cognitive and non-cognitive skills," IBS Working Papers 09/2018, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    9. Sayema Haque Bidisha & Tanveer Mahmood & Mahir A. Rahman, 2021. "Earnings inequality and the changing nature of work: Evidence from Labour Force Survey data of Bangladesh," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-7, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Piotr Lewandowski, 2018. "How does technology change the nature of work? Poland vs. the EU," IBS Policy Papers 02/2018, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Autor & Anna Salomons, 2018. "Is Automation Labor Share–Displacing? Productivity Growth, Employment, and the Labor Share," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(1 (Spring), pages 1-87.
    2. Gabriele Ciminelli & Romain Duval & Davide Furceri, 2022. "Employment Protection Deregulation and Labor Shares in Advanced Economies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1174-1190, November.
    3. Hémous, David & Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Olsen, Morten & Zanella, carlo, 2019. "Automating Labor: Evidence from Firm-level Patent Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 14249, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Jaimovich, Nir & Saporta-Eksten, Itay & Siu, Henry & Yedid-Levi, Yaniv, 2021. "The macroeconomics of automation: Data, theory, and policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 1-16.
    5. Davide Furceri & Prakash Loungani & Jonathan D. Ostry, 2019. "The Aggregate and Distributional Effects of Financial Globalization: Evidence from Macro and Sectoral Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(S1), pages 163-198, December.
    6. Cortes, Guido Matias & Jaimovich, Nir & Siu, Henry E., 2017. "Disappearing routine jobs: Who, how, and why?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 69-87.
    7. Taniguchi, Hiroya & Yamada, Ken, 2022. "ICT capital–skill complementarity and wage inequality: Evidence from OECD countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Jocelyn Maillard, 2021. "Automation, Offshoring and Employment Distribution in Western Europe," Working Papers 2108, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    9. Kerstin Hotte & Melline Somers & Angelos Theodorakopoulos, 2022. "Technology and jobs: A systematic literature review," Papers 2204.01296, arXiv.org.
    10. Battisti, Michele & Gravina, Antonio Francesco, 2021. "Do robots complement or substitute for older workers?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    11. M. Battisti & M. Del Gatto & A. F. Gravina & C. F. Parmeter, 2021. "Robots versus labor skills: a complementarity/substitutability analysis," Working Paper CRENoS 202104, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    12. Alberto Alesina & Michele Battisti & Joseph Zeira, 2018. "Technology and labor regulations: theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 41-78, March.
    13. Graetz, Georg, 2020. "Technological change and the Swedish labor market," Working Paper Series 2020:19, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    14. repec:bin:bpeajo:v:49:y:2019:i:2018-01:p:1-87 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Agustin Velasquez, 2023. "Production Technology, Market Power, and the Decline of the Labor Share," IMF Working Papers 2023/032, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Musa Orak, 2017. "Capital-Task Complementarity and the Decline of the U.S. Labor Share of Income," International Finance Discussion Papers 1200, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Arvai Kai & Mann Katja, 2022. "Consumption Inequality in the Digital Age," Working papers 890, Banque de France.
    18. Arvai, Kai & Mann, Katja, 2022. "Consumption Inequality in the Digital Age," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264001, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Schulte, Patrick, 2015. "Does skill-biased technical change diffuse internationally?," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-088, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    20. Gregor Jarosch & Jan Sebastian Nimczik & Isaac Sorkin, 2024. "Granular Search, Market Structure, and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(6), pages 3569-3607.
    21. Hamid Boustanifar & Everett Grant & Ariell Reshef, 2018. "Wages and Human Capital in Finance: International Evidence, 1970–2011 [Financial reform: what shakes it? What shapes it?]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 699-745.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:34:y:2020:i:1:p:48-62.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.