Technical Efficiency and ICT Investment in Italian Manufacturing Firms

Concetta Castiglione (1)

1 Economics

The importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is a much debated question with extensive literature aimed at understanding the role of ICTs in increasing economic growth, firm productivity and firm efficiency. Different methods to estimate firm efficiency are used in this study. In particular, both the translog and the Cobb-Douglas production functions are used in order to estimate the impact of information and communication technology on technical efficiency (TE) in Italian manufacturing firms over the period 1995-2003. Results show that ICT investments positively and significantly affected firms' technical efficiency. Moreover, group, size and geographical position have a positive influence on TE. Finally, the results show that older firms are, on average, more efficient than newer ones.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Domaines: Économie et finance quantitative [q-fin]

Concetta Castiglione. Technical Efficiency and ICT Investment in Italian Manufacturing Firms. Applied Economics, 2011, pp.1. ⟨10.1080/00036846.2011.554374⟩. ⟨hal-00682262⟩