Technology structure and skill structure: Costly investment and complementarity effects quantification

Based on an extended model of endogenous directed technical change and on cross-country data, we identify and quantify the long-run link between: (i) the technology structure (high- vs. low-tech sectors) and the skill structure (high- vs. low-skilled workers), by considering an explicit role for the (potential) complementarity between technological goods; (ii) the Tobin-q and the technology characteristics of the firms through their impact on economic growth. Our estimation and calibration exercise suggests the existence of a moderate degree of complementarity and of an elastic relationship between the Tobin-q and key technology parameters. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.