Bryson, Alexander; Barth, Erling; Dale-Olsen, Harald; (2025) Creative Disruption – Technology innovations during unexpected turmoil. Economica (In press).

Text Bryson_Creative_disruption_ECONOMICA_revison2.pdf Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 8 January 2026. Download (1MB)

Abstract

The 2020 pandemic shock created both local and global turmoil, increasing uncertainty and decreasing production. Utilizing a new survey on Norwegian firms’ digitalization and technology investments, linked to population-wide register data, we show that the pandemic massively disrupted the technology investment plans of firms, both in terms of postponing investments and in introducing new technologies. Consistent with theory, more productive firms and firms with more knowledge capital innovated, while firms with less knowledge capital postponed investments. In the short-term, technology-adopting firms were more likely to be acquired. Where firms avoided acquisition and continued to operate, they were more likely to grow and to increase the number of knowledge workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

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