2024-09-29-世界银行-资本激励是否会扭曲技术扩散_云_大数据和人工智能的证据（英）_58页_641kb

Key Findings Summary

This paper examines the impact of capital incentive policies, specifically the UK's Annual Investment Allowance (AIA), on firm decisions to adopt digital technologies such as cloud computing, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). Using a quasi-natural experiment and difference-in-differences approach with UK firm-level data from 2007 to 2019, the following key findings emerge:

1. Impact on IT Investment: Eligibility for the AIA encourages firms to increase investments in traditional tangible IT capital (e.g., hardware, software, plants, and machinery) by approximately 61.7% in the period 2007-2013.

2. Impact on Cloud Adoption: Despite increasing IT investment, the AIA reduces the likelihood of firms adopting cloud-based services, particularly those related to data storage and processing, such as cloud databases and file storage, by 9.4-18%. Firms eligible for the AIA postpone cloud adoption by roughly one year compared to control firms.

3. Impact on Big Data and AI: The AIA policy similarly discourages the adoption of big data analytics and AI technologies. Eligible firms' likelihood of adopting these technologies decreases by around 18-19% compared to non-eligible firms.

4. Workforce Implications: The AIA reduces wage growth for data analytics workers in firms receiving the incentive, though it does not affect demand for other types of data-related roles (e.g., database creation, non-data tasks) or overall labor demand.

5. Heterogeneity: SMEs are disproportionately affected by the AIA, being 37% less likely to adopt cloud technologies compared to larger firms, despite often benefiting from the flexibility cloud provides.

6. Robustness: The findings hold across various specifications, sample exclusions, and time periods, indicating that capital incentives may inadvertently slow the diffusion of digital technologies by encouraging traditional IT investments at the expense of newer, cloud-dependent tools.

Policy Implications
These results suggest that capital incentive policies designed for traditional IT may distort technology adoption toward older infrastructure, delaying the uptake of efficient, scalable digital platforms like the cloud and its complementary technologies (big data, AI). Policymakers should reassess whether such incentives hinder broader technological progress and consider alternative approaches that align with the evolving structure of IT costs and capabilities.