Business dynamics, industry productivity growth, and the distribution of firm-level performance: evidence for the role of ICT using Dutch firm-level data

We present evidence on industry productivity growth and business dynamics in Dutch industries for the period 2007-2012, and investigate whether there is a role for ICT intensity in explaining differences across industries. Moreover, we relate ICT intensity to various distributional characteristics of firm performance, such as the dispersion of labor productivity and turnover, concentration and turbulence of market shares, and the efficiency of resource allocation. In the first part of the paper we follow a decomposition approach, whereas in the second part we apply a regression based analysis. The results suggest that productivity growth is higher in ICT production and industries with high ICT usage, but that ICT also increases differences in firm performance and leads to concentration of markets. In addition, there is evidence that markets are more efficient in ICT intensive industries.