Abstract:
This paper explores how firms' skills and organizational change affect the returns from investments in ICT. Our work contributes to the literature by testing the hypothesis of complementarity in a panel of 540 Italian manufacturing firms during 1995-2000. By drawing on different statistical methods, we do not find any clearcut support to the hypothesis of full complementarity among ICT, human capital and organizational change. We find a strong support to the hypotheses of skill-biased technical change and a weaker support to the skill-biased organizational change hypothesis particularly in medium-sized firms. Our findings suggest that the productivity gains from investments in the three innovative activities are related to firm size.