Digital technologies can boost firms productivity. Despite that, productivity in most OECD countries dropped considerably in the last years. There are two main reasons for that: the diffusion of digital technologies has been slow and the gains from them have been unequally distributed among the most and least productive firms.
This contribution has been recently released for the OECD Going Digital Project, an initiative addressing policy makers with the aim to provide them with the tools they need to help their economies and societies prosper in an increasingly digital and data-driven world. In this framework, the paper on “Digital Dividend: Policies to Harness the Productivity Potential of Digital Technologies” presents a series of policies to enhance the adoption of digital technologies and firm productivity. Among the main findings the report highlights that efforts by policy makers should be addressed towards policies:
- implementing regulatory frameworks that support investment in broadband and pro-competition reforms in telecommunication sectors to enable broader and cheaper access to high-speed internet;
- incentivizing the participation to training of the workforce and improve cognitive, organisational and managerial skills;
- facilitating job transitions and enabling an efficient reallocation of resources across firms and industries;
- reducing the financial burden and constraints for young innovative firms, also by encouraging the development of venture capital markets;
- improving the competition in digital markets, by both reducing barriers to cross border digital trade and by considering the paramount importance of data characterising certain digital activities;
- further developing e-government to exploit the synergies between digitalisation of the public and private sectors.
These policies can also contribute to inclusiveness to the extent in which they support firms in reducing the gap with the most productive ones, and displaced workers in finding an alternative job as well as support wage growth.
The final synthesis report of the Going Digital Project will be presented at the high-level OECD Going Digital Summit on 11-12 March 2019 in Paris. Further information about the summit is available here.
To read the paper, please click here.
Source: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - OECD
