The economic impact of ICT: measurement, evidence and implications OECD-OCDE [electronic resource] /

English

Paris : OECD, 2004

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Information and communications technology (ICT) has become a key driver of economic growth over the past decade. The rapid diffusion of the Internet, of mobile telephony and of broadband networks all demonstrate how pervasive this technology has become. But how precisely does ICT affect economic growth and the efficiency of firms? And how well can these effects be measured? This report provides an overview of the economic impact of ICT on economic performance, and the ways through which it can be measured. Using available OECD data, the first part of the book examines the available measures of ICT diffusion, the role and impact of ICT investment and the role of ICT-using and ICT-producing sectors in overall economic performance. The second part of the book offers nine studies for OECD countries, based on detailed firm-level data and prepared by researchers and statisticians from a wide range of OECD countries. These studies use a variety of methods and provide detailed insights on the effects of ICT in individual countries. The report shows that ICT is indeed having a far-reaching impact on economic performance and on the success of individual firms, in particular when it is combined with investment in skills, organisational change and innovation. This impact can be observed in firm-level studies for all OECD countries, but has not yet translated into better economic performance at the sectoral or economy-wide level in many of these countries. The report also points to factors that may explain the gap between the impacts of ICT at the firm level and on aggregate performance, such as time lags, difficulties in measuring productivity at the aggregate level, and the large diversity in the performance of individual firms.

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