Productivity and human capital

Abstract

This paper investigates whether and how worker composition, ownership and management affect the productivity of firms. To this aim, we use a dataset obtained by integrating the micro-data drawn from Rilevazione su Imprese e Lavoro (RIL), a survey conducted by Inapp in 2010 and 2015 on a representative sample of Italian limited liability and partnership firms, with the AIDA archive containing comprehensive information on the balance sheets of almost all the Italian corporations. We apply different regression models and the findings reveal that a higher share of skilled workers within firms and more experienced managers are associated with higher productivity levels. In addition, firms run by managers with higher education are more likely to introduce innovation. Finally, family ownership and the coincidence of management with ownership are negatively related with firm productivity.