Who has been driving the creation of industrial employment in Argentina? An analysis of the role of innovation

This paper analyses the relationship between innovation and job creation in firms. In particular, it seeks out data on the role played by innovation during the latest phase of expansion in Argentine manufacturing employment (2010–2012). It uses the model proposed by Harrison and others (2014), taking an instrumental variables approach and drawing data from the recently concluded National Survey of Employment Dynamics and Innovation (ENDEI). The results show that process innovations do not influence employment growth, but that this is positively affected by product innovations. The latter also enable production efficiency to be increased by more than it can with existing products. Where the composition of employment in terms of skills is concerned, product innovation is found not to present any particular bias.