Technology and Jobs in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Project partners: Melanie Arntz (ZEW), Sabrina Genz (IAB), Terry Gregory (IZA and ZEW), Markus Janser (IAB), Florian Lehmer (IAB), Britta Matthes (IAB), Ulrich Zierahn (ZEW)

This larger project investigates the impact of technology on jobs in the 4th industrial revolution. The aim is to understand how technology investments affect employment and wages through e.g. capital-labor substitutions/complementarities and product demand effects operating at the firm level. For this we conduct a firm survey among 2032 representative German firms that contains, among others, detailed information on technological upgrading between 2011 and 2016, a recent period of rapid technological progress. Linked to administrative employment records, the data allows us to investigate the causal impact of these technology investments on total and group-specific employment and wages at the macro-, firm- and individual level.