A Multisectoral Analysis for economic policy: an application for healthcare systems and for labour market composition by skills

The European Digital Agenda defines the key role of ICT from a digital single market based on fast and ultra fast internet and interoperable applications, to obtain sustainable economic and social benefits COM(2010)245. ICTs produce high product innovation and structural changes within the whole economic system and we may maintain that from a multisectoral viewpoint ICT has a multiplier effect on the economic growth, because the increase of ICT demand generates a stimulus in all productions. Furthermore as recognised in all economic literature, international institutions, as well as confirmed by periodic data released by National statistical offices, a higher incidence of formally educated working population in association with the adoption of ICT is highly correlated with robust, sustainable and equal growth patterns. In this framework, evaluating the role of ICTs in the whole economic system, both in particular the role of ICTs into production of healthcare and into the value added with a disaggregation on basis the digital skills on compensation of employees. In the first paper the healthcare industry and its specific production process will be examined in the interaction with the other industries composing the production structure. The core of the paper is the role of ICT in the determination of the output of the sector. The application combines a world input-output table covering 24 countries for the period 2000-2014 using the World Input Output Database (WIOD). The “Health and Social Services” industry attains then, at least in some specific countries, a role in stimulating innovation that amply pays off that of constituting a burden on public budget. The aim of the second paper is to describe how the healthcare systems, as well as other economic sectors, are evolving with the use of ICTs; in particular the introduction of the Electronic Health Record (EHR), as a tool to share the health data of a single citizen, can determine changes in the production of health services. A specific attention will be dedicated to the eventual structural changes in the productive processes and in the gross output. The multisectoral approach allows looking into the relation between healthcare services and the whole economic system. Applying the Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) to Input-output tables in different times in order to identify the results, at sector level, of the effects of technological coefficients and the final demand. Finally, the purpose of the third paper is to evaluate the consequences of changes in the composition of employment by digital skill within the whole production and distribution of income. The tool adopted to address this issue is the building of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), which allows representing the relations between the changes in the output of activities and the changes of compensation of employees by digital skills, degree and gender. The SAM developed in the paper is relative to Italy in 2013; moreover labour is disaggregated into formal/no formal/informal competence and, additionally, digital/no digital skills. Labour digital skills are defined according to the formal competence declared by the European Commission (2000): i) formal competence depending on the level of education and training; ii) non-formal competence gained at the workplace and through the activities of social organisations and groups; iii) informal competence not acquired intentionally during life. In this framework has been introduced a further classification of labour input based on the use/non use of computers linked to the Internet. On the basis of the SAM, an extended multisectoral model is implemented. Finally, an appropriate structure of final demand, which allows obtaining the best results in terms of value added, distributed to more skilled workers with a high digital competence.