Employment in Information and Communication Technologies in Europe: Determinants and Consequences

What is it about?

Information and communication technologies have important role in many different innovations and further positively affect the productivity and economic growth. Our aim was to examine examine the share of ICT sector in selected European countries and identify its potential determinants and consequences. We used mostly panel data for EU28 countries plus Norway and Switzerland and applied correlation and panel Granger causality tests. The employment in ICT was used as main examined variable. Our results suggest that there is a positive correlation between ICT skills as well as the share of people with ICT education and employment in ICT. The causal effect seems to be working in direction from education to employment. Moreover, variables capturing GDP per capita, trade openness, R&D expenditure, number of internet users, quality of regulation and political stability appear to be all positively correlated with employment in ICT and especially with employment in ICT services.

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Why is it important?

The paper is focused on determinants and conseqeuces of ICT sector form economic point of view. The role of ICT education is also examined in more detail.