Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 9 July 2025, LG 2.429
You are invited to join the weekly Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 9 July 2025, from 13.15 to 14.45 pm. The seminar will be held in room LG 0.423. Cäcilia Lipowski (ifo Institute) will be talking about “No Teens, No Tech: How Shortages of New Entrants Hinder Firm Technology Investments”.
More information can be found here:
What drives firm investments in new technologies, a key source of economic growth? This paper proposes theoretically that young labor market entrants are a central determinant, because they have low opportunity costs and high returns from acquiring new tech skills. I provide empirical evidence for this hypothesis by leveraging a large, temporary, and exogenous shock to trainee supply caused by an education reform in Germany in 2001. Reduced trainee supply decreases firm technology investments, indicating complementarity between new entrants and new technologies. The effect is driven by firms that invest in their trainees’ human capital, supporting the skill acquisition channel.