This deliverable contains the proofs for the Milestone 6 (Digital Transformation: Impact on skills and inequality – WP3). We show where we are with the work and can report that the activities in WP3 are halfway.
WP3 (Digital Transformation: Impact on skills and inequality) uses data on the microeconomic responses of workers and firms to technology shocks. The connection of individual employees to the company investments at firm firm-level is a novel approach. The data allows to understand how decisions are made at the firm-level. The focus is on distinguishing the different impact of cutting edge technologies, such as Industry 4.0, and older technologies. We allow explicitly for heterogeneity across firms. The WP starts at the investment-level and then focuses on the firm-level impacts on employment, wages and contracts. The analysis leads to informed policy choices. In particular, we aim to:
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- Investigate the impact of firms’’ investments into cutting-edge technologies on firm-level employment and occupational structures, as well as the role of new technologies (robotics, computer-aided design, computer-digital machine tools) in boosting firm-level productivity and creating “superstar firms”;
- Investigate the impact of technological change on workers’ careers (employment, wages, mobility), the heterogeneity of these impacts, and which characteristics help workers to cope with the change;
- Investigate the impact of technology-induced incentive wage schemes on within- and between-firm gender wage gaps;
- Derive policy implications on how policy makers can respond to the challenges which that technological change poses for labour markets.