Complementarities between firm-sponsored training and information technology use

ABSTRACT

In this article, we investigate the presence of possible complementarities between investments in information technology (IT) and firm-sponsored training using economy-wide longitudinal representative workplace-level data. Since information on the firm’s capital stock is often missing in such representative data, we match our workplace records to tax data to construct measures of the firm’s capital stock. We find some evidence of positive complementarities between investments in human capital and IT, suggesting that on-the-job training can also have a positive impact on productivity when complemented with investments in CAD or other technologies.

KEYWORDS:

• Productivity
• complementarities
• information technologies
• firm-sponsored training

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• J24
• L22
• M53
• O32

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ We take into account many other workplace characteristics, such as its occupational structure, and we control for industry and time effects. These results are not shown but are available upon request.