The impact of hiring top workers on productivity: what is the role of absorptive capacity? - Ratio

PublikationArtikel (med peer review)

The impact of hiring top workers on productivity: what is the role of absorptive capacity?

Sammanfattning

We examine the heterogeneous productivity impacts of hiring top workers on small and medium-sized enterprises, exploiting matched employer–employee panel data and employing within-firm as well as matching and difference-in-difference estimators. The results provide robust evidence that the productivity impact is stronger for firms with higher absorptive capacity. Technological laggards within an industry benefit more strongly from hiring top workers if their workforce is more well-educated.

Lodefalk, M., & Tang, A. (2018). The impact of hiring top workers on productivity: what is the role of absorptive capacity?Applied Economics Letters, 25(20), 1402-1406. DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2017.1422594

Liknande innehåll

Artikel (med peer review)

Stayin’ alive: Export credit guarantees and export survival

Lodefalk, M., Tang, A., & Yu, M.

Publiceringsår

2025

Publicerat i

Applied Economics Letters

Sammanfattning

We use survival analysis to analyse the impact of export credit guarantees on firms’ export duration using granular Swedish panel data at the firm-country and firm-country-product levels. The estimation results show that firms’ export survival substantially increases with guarantees, at both levels. The associations are particularly strong for smaller firms and contracts as well as in trade with riskier markets. The findings have implications for policies to promote long-run export growth.

Artikel (med peer review)

Artificial intelligence, tasks, skills and wages: Worker-level evidence from Germany

Engberg, E., Koch, M., Lodefalk, M., & Schroeder, S.

Publiceringsår

2025

Publicerat i

Research Policy

Sammanfattning

As a first step, the study documents novel evidence on changes in tasks and skills within occupations in Germany over the past two decades. It further identifies a distinct relationship between ex ante occupational work content and ex post exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) and automation through robots. Workers in occupations with high AI exposure perform different activities and face different skill requirements than workers in occupations primarily exposed to robots, suggesting that AI and robots substitute for different types of tasks and skills. The study also shows that changes in the task and skill content of occupations are related to their initial exposure to these technologies. Finally, using individual labour market biographies, the analysis investigates the relationship between AI exposure and wages. By examining the dynamic effects of AI exposure over time, the study finds positive associations with wages, with nuanced differences across occupational groups, thereby providing further insight into the substitutability and augmentability of AI.

Working paper

Working Paper No. 386 The Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Jobs: Evidence from an AI subsidy Program.

Mark Hellsten, Shantanu Khanna, Magnus Lodefalk, Yaroslav Yakymovych

Publiceringsår

2025

Publicerat i

Ratio Working Paper Series.

Sammanfattning

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to reshape labor markets, yet causal evidence remains scarce. We exploit a novel Swedish subsidy program that encouraged small and mid-sized firms to adopt AI. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences design comparing awarded and non-awarded firms, we find that AI subsidies led to a sustained increase in job postings over five years, but with no statistically detectable change in employment. This pattern reflects hiring signals concentrated in AI occupations and white-collar roles. Our findings align with task-based models of automation, in which AI adoption reconfigures work and spurs demand for new skills, but hiring frictions and the need for complementary investments delay workforce expansion.

Visa fler