ICT spillovers, absorptive capacity and productivity performance

Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 103/2012, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia, Finanza e Statistica.

We analyse the impact of ICT spillovers on productivity in the uptake of the new technology using company data for the U.S. We account for inter- and intra-industry spillovers and assess the role played by firm’s absorptive capacity. Our results show that intra-industry ICT spillovers have a contemporaneous negative effect that turns positive 5 years after the initial investment. By contrast, inter-industry spillovers are important both in the short and in the long run. In the short run, companies’ innovative effort is complementary to ICT spillovers, but such complementarity disappears with the more pervasive adoption and diffusion of the technology.