Using matched employer-employee data for Germany, we estimate firm production functions augmented with workers' personality traits. We find that emotional stability is the only trait that positively affects firm productivity. Its effect shows up mainly in large firms operating with a higher than...

This paper provides new evidence on how the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) affects productivity and employment in Europe. Using matched EIBIS-ORBIS data on more than 12,000 non-financial firms in the European Union (EU) and United States (US), we instrument the adoption of AI by EU...

We examine the long-term labor market impact of the steam engine, an early general-purpose technology, by linking newly digitized 19th-century records from Prussia to modern German labor market data (1975-2019). Regions with a higher concentration of steam engines per worker in 1875 exhibit...

This study examines the effects of the russia's full-scale invasion on the Ukrainian corporate labor market. We use the DID technique to analyze a panel data set of over 100,000 firms linked to geolocation and industry data spanning 2021-2024 and show how war harms the corporate labor market in...

We construct a new micro-geographic commercial rent index for Germany to study the capitalization of agglomeration economies into floor space prices. In large local labor markets, commercial rents decline by -17% per kilometer from the central business district, compared to 13% for residential...

We study how variation in the allocation mechanism of public demand shapes firm performance and aggregate productivity. Exploiting the quasi-random implementation of an efficient or lottery-like auction format in the Italian construction sector, we find that when the same amount of public...

We use novel data from a survey of nearly 750 corporate executives to study the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on productivity and the workforce. We document substantial heterogeneity in AI adoption across firms, with more than half having already invested, though many smaller firms are...

This paper examines the existence and extent to which the "Baumol cost disease" could have affected aggregate growth in Europe. This would arise if lower productivity sectors began to account for an increasing share of output which would then put downward pressure on the prospective growth rate...

Research laboratories in universities face a complex challenge: they must manage multiple projects, diverse teams, and tight deadlines, often with limited resources. While the business world has long used agile and quality management tools to navigate such complexity, these methods are...

Structural transformation is a central driver of economic development, yet recent challenges such as premature deindustrialization have raised critical questions about whether low-income economies can still follow traditional growth paths that rely on manufacturing expansion to drive...

This study characterizes optimal policy in an endogenous growth model where heterogeneous individuals choose between entering the workforce as unskilled labor or pursuing education to become skilled. In the decentralized economy, monopolists produce goods using both labor types. They purchase...

The discussion on Artificial Intelligence (AI) often centers around its impact on productivity, but macroeconomic evidence for Europe remains scarce. Using the Acemoglu (2024) approach we simulate the medium-term impact of AI adoption on total factor productivity for 31 European countries. We...

This chapter presents a tractable framework for the study of technology adoption and diffusion in the context of economic development. Firms in countries behind the world technology frontier can rapidly adopt new techniques from the world frontier. Lower absorptive capacity (because of weak...

Gender gaps in earnings persist even among high-skilled workers, partly because men and women often perform different tasks within and across jobs. We study a rare setting in which high-skilled men and women perform the same tasks under comparable conditions, allowing us to assess gender...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is diffusing rapidly in the workplace, yet aggregate productivity gains remain limited. This paper examines the dual diffusion of AI – through both formal, employer-led and informal, employee-initiated adoption – as potential explanation. Using a representative...

We present the first representative international data on firm-level AI use. We survey almost 6,000 CFOs, CEOs, and executives from stratified firm samples across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia. We find four key facts. First, around 70 percent of firms actively use AI, particularly younger,...

Investment has been low in the last decades (both by firms and by government). This does not only hold for fixed capital including R&D, but also for investment in climate, housing, infrastructure and education. Productivity has been low too and should be stimulated, as is elaborated in the...