Beschreibung:
Two technologies (RPA robotics facilitating automation and video collaboration technology supporting work from home) have lately been invading the organization of work, and have notably accelerated their inroads thanks to the recent covid pandemic. Whether this evolution is part of a “new normal” is still heavily debated. We propose a simple task based model of labor and joint technology demand by firms that generates predictions as to how technology diffusion might improve firm performance,, and thus is part of firm incentive to push for this “the new normal”. Testing the framework among a sample of more than 4000 global multinational firms, we find that labor productivity is positively correlated with practices of automation and remote work, but technology features (scope, level of exploration and extent of complementarity/substitution) shape the extent of productivity gains