Elena Cefis (Università di Bergamo)

“Italian investment plan for industry 4.0 and firm’s productivity”

joint with Stefania Scrofani, Matteo Tubiana

at Campus Luigi Einaudi- room 3D233

Abstract Industry 4.0 technologies are radically changing the industrial processes, stimulating automation, digitisation and flexibility. National governments have enacted innovation policies to support firms’ investments in the new technologies and increase productivity growth. By using panel data on the population of Italian corporations and analysing firms’ financial statements, we explore who are the firms that have profited from the incentives in the Piano Nazionale Industria 4.0 and their effects on labour productivity. The theoretical framework for our work is based on the innovation policies and the structure of the Italian industrial system. Among the paper’s results, firms that have used more the fiscal incentives are firms of medium and large size, located in the most industrialised area of Country (North Italy and in Emilia Romagna). The innovation policy seems to affect positively firms’ labour productivity, effect that becomes larger as the size class increases. According to the knowledge intensity of the macro-sectors, firms belonging to the highest intensity knowledge sectors do not register a significant increase in productivity given by the fiscal incentives, probably due to the fact they invested in Industry 4.0 technologies long before the national plan was launched.