ICT, CO-INNOVATION AND FIRM PRODUCTIVITY: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM CATALONIA AND INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON OF RESULTS.

Using survey data on a representative sample of the Catalan productive private network (1,238 firms), this paper a) analyzes the new co-innovative (ICT uses, skilled labour and new forms of work organization) productivity sources; and b) compares the results in an international framework. For most Catalan firms (80% of which neither use technology nor are knowledge intensive) there seems to be no evidence to corroborate the existence of new co-innovation sources in the explanation of their long term potential growth. When the results are compared at the international level, findings suggest that: a) there is a higher incidence of co-innovation on productivity in U.S. and Australian firms, as it also happens in the European context; b) there is no relevant impact of ICT use in Spanish firms' productivity; and c) related to that, there is a significant delay in the implementation of the co-innovative productivity sources in the Catalan firms.