arXiv subjects

Bernardo Caldarola

Publications and source records attributed to Bernardo Caldarola.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Scaling up to the cloud: Cloud technology use and growth rates in small and large firms

Using a unique combination of micro-level data sources on French firms, this paper explores the relationship between cloud technologies and firm growth. Whereas digital technologies have generally been found to disproportionately benefit larger firms, we document that cloud use is positively associated with firm growth, and this association is significantly stronger for smaller firms. Distinguishing cloud services between Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), we find that the size-contingent association is driven entirely by SaaS. Crucially, this small firm advantage is conditional on complementary assets as it emerges only among firms endowed with ICT capabilities. Our results are robust across a range of specifications, including instrumental variable strategies. SaaS cloud use is further associated with internal workforce reorganisation toward ICT, managerial, and intermediate occupations and away from manual and clerical ones, particularly among smaller firms, consistent with SaaS cloud operating as an organisational innovation enabling digitalisation and scaling. Finally, we present descriptive sectoral evidence of a negative correlation between cloud and market concentration.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2026

Structural Change, Employment, and Inequality in Europe: an Economic Complexity Approach

Structural change consists of industrial diversification towards more productive, knowledge intensive activities. However, changes in the productive structure bear inherent links with job creation and income distribution. In this paper, we investigate the consequences of structural change, defined in terms of labour shifts towards more complex industries, on employment growth, wage inequality, and functional distribution of income. The analysis is conducted for European countries using data on disaggregated industrial employment shares over the period 2010-2018. First, we identify patterns of industrial specialisation by validating a country-industry industrial employment matrix using a bipartite weighted configuration model (BiWCM). Secondly, we introduce a country-level measure of labour-weighted Fitness, which can be decomposed in such a way as to isolate a component that identifies the movement of labour towards more complex industries, which we define as structural change. Thirdly, we link structural change to i) employment growth, ii) wage inequality, and iii) labour share of the economy. The results indicate that our structural change measure is associated negatively with employment growth. However, it is also associated with lower income inequality. As countries move to more complex industries, they drop the least complex ones, so the (low-paid) jobs in the least complex sectors disappear. Finally, structural change predicts a higher labour ratio of the economy; however, this is likely to be due to the increase in salaries rather than by job creation.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2024

Economic complexity and the sustainability transition: A review of data, methods, and literature

Economic Complexity (EC) methods have gained increasing popularity across fields and disciplines. In particular, the EC toolbox has proved particularly promising in the study of complex and interrelated phenomena, such as the transition towards a greener economy. Using the EC approach, scholars have been investigating the relationship between EC and sustainability, proposing to identify the distinguishing characteristics of green products and to assess the readiness of productive and technological structures for the sustainability transition. This article proposes to review and summarize the data, methods, and empirical literature that are relevant to the study of the sustainability transition from an EC perspective. We review three distinct but connected blocks of literature on EC and environmental sustainability. First, we survey the evidence linking measures of EC to indicators related to environmental sustainability. Second, we review articles that strive to assess the green competitiveness of productive systems. Third, we examine evidence on green technological development and its connection to non-green knowledge bases. Finally, we summarize the findings for each block and identify avenues for further research in this recent and growing body of empirical literature.

econ.GN↗