R&D, Embodied Technological Change and Employment: Evidence from Italian Microdata

Abstract

This paper explores the employment impact of innovation activity, taking into account both RD however, this positive effect is barely significant when the sole in-house R&D expenditures are considered and fades away when ETC is included as a proxy for innovation activities. Moreover, the positive employment impacts of innovation activities and R&D expenditures are totally due to firms operating in high-tech industries and large companies, while no job-creation due to technical change is detectable in traditional sectors and SMEs.