Information and Communications Technology as a General‐Purpose Technology: Evidence from US Industry Data

Susanto Basu and John Fernald ()

German Economic Review, 2007, vol. 8, issue 2, 146-173

Abstract: Abstract. Many people point to information and communications technology (ICT) as the key for understanding the acceleration in productivity in the United States since the mid‐1990s. Stories of ICT as a ‘general‐purpose technology’ suggest that measured total factor productivity (TFP) should rise in ICT‐using sectors (reflecting either unobserved accumulation of intangible organizational capital; spillovers; or both), but with a long lag. Contemporaneously, however, investments in ICT may be associated with lower TFP as resources are diverted to reorganization and learning. We find that US industry results are consistent with general‐purpose technology (GPT) stories: the acceleration after the mid‐1990s was broad‐based – located primarily in ICT‐using industries rather than ICT‐producing industries. Furthermore, industry TFP accelerations in the 2000s are positively correlated with (appropriately weighted) industry ICT capital growth in the 1990s. Indeed, as GPT stories would suggest, after controlling for past ICT investment, industry TFP accelerations are negatively correlated with increases in ICT usage in the 2000s.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (76)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2007.00402.x

Related works:
Journal Article: Information and communications technology as a general purpose technology: evidence from U.S. industry data (2008)
Journal Article: Information and Communications Technology as a General-Purpose Technology: Evidence from US Industry Data (2007)
Working Paper: Information and communications technology as a general-purpose technology: evidence from U.S industry data (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:germec:v:8:y:2007:i:2:p:146-173

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1465-6485

Access Statistics for this article

German Economic Review is currently edited by Bernhard Felderer, Joseph F. Francois, Ivo Welch, Urs Schweizer and David E. Wildasin

More articles in German Economic Review from Verein für Socialpolitik Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().