Abstract

This study investigates the effects of local broadband internet availability on the hiring pat-terns of establishments. I study whether broadband availability inclines establishments to hire more, more highly skilled, or younger workers. Previous research has shown that broadband is a skill-biased technology, favoring the high-skilled over the low-skilled in terms of em-ployment and productivity. However, since young workers (“digital natives”) are more apt than older workers at using advanced information and communication technology, broadband expansion might also bias hiring towards young workers. The analysis is conducted for West-ern Germany in the mid-2000s, when “fast” internet was first introduced to the more rural re-gions. Past technical frictions in the roll-out of broadband are exploited to obtain exogenous variation in local broadband availability. Preliminary results suggest that broadband expan-sion increased the share of young hires, but not their number or share of high-skilled.