organisation
The Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago publishes economics working papers before peer review. Working paper No. 2026-132, “Capital-Skill Complementarity Beyond Firm Boundaries”, dated October 2026, is by Gert Bijnens (National Bank of Belgium), Anders Humlum (Chicago Booth) and Stijn Vanormelingen (KU Leuven). For Belgium from 2003 to 2020, it links annual accounts, VAT returns, transactions between firms and the qualification of each employee. The authors follow 3,863 firms whose stock of machinery per employee peaked, compared with as many firms in the same sector. In the year of the peak, purchases from suppliers raise total demand for STEM graduates by 50%, and still by 33% four years later. In-house hiring raises it by only 3 to 5% in the year of the peak and by 9 to 13% four years later. Machinery suppliers and integrators drive the initial rise, then software publishers and programming take over. The abstract cites a figure of 45% for external purchases, three times the rise for other groups of graduates.
Our perspective
The skills plan of a mid-sized company that automates describes its employees. The skill that keeps the machine running is bought from the integrator, then from the software publisher, and appears in no organisation chart. Dependence builds there, at each renewal of a maintenance contract. Our advice: for each critical piece of equipment, name the supplier that holds the skill to run it, and decide whether that skill should be brought in-house, duplicated or secured by contract.
Working paper, not peer reviewed; Belgian data from 2003 to 2020; external employment is estimated in proportion to purchases from each supplier, not observed. Funding and conflicts of interest are not covered in the sections we reviewed.
Sources
Bijnens, Humlum, Vanormelingen, “Capital-Skill Complementarity Beyond Firm Boundaries”, BFI Working Paper 2026-132, October 2026, accessed 17 October 2026: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/BFI_WP_2026-132.pdf · BFI, working paper page (returned an error when accessed on 17 October): https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-papers/capital-skill-complementarity-beyond-firm-boundaries/
Explore further
The Spentia newsletter
Three dated, sourced facts, an article and a podcast. Delivered in French every Monday.