IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/niesru/v184y2003i1p60-73.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Growth of ICT and Industry Performance - Manufacturing in the US and UK Compared

Author

Listed:
  • Mary O'Mahony

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research, m.omahony@niesr.ac.uk)

  • Catherine Robinson

    (National Institute of Economic and Social Research)

Abstract

UK manufacturing productivity has for a long time lagged behind the US. Explanations put forward for the `productivity gap' include disparities in capital stock levels, the quality of the labour force and different rates of technology adoption. The questions addressed in this paper are, `has slower UK up-take of information technology exacerbated the productivity gap? Can this account for the slowdown in the manufacturing sector in the mid-1990s, a period when the US experienced substantial growth?' Using the growth accounting method and industry data for the period 1988-2000, the paper indicates considerable industry heterogeneity in both the UK and the US, which aggregate sectoral analysis is likely to obscure. The results suggest that whilst the UK continues to lag behind the US in terms of ICT capital shares, differences in rates of growth of ICT capital are minor. Labour quality indicators show positive ICT and non-ICT skilled labour growth and declines in lower skilled categories in both countries, with the UK leading the US in recent years. Thus UK manufacturing has invested significantly in new technology inputs. The paper also shows there are similarities in the cross industry patterns of productivity performance in the two countries but growth rates in the UK are significantly below those in the US across the board. The paper then considers alternative explanations for the slowdown in UK manufacturing productivity in the mid to late 1990s and suggests this may be due to macroeconomic factors peculiar to that period and lags in the adjustments of firms to a changed environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Mary O'Mahony & Catherine Robinson, 2003. "The Growth of ICT and Industry Performance - Manufacturing in the US and UK Compared," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 184(1), pages 60-73, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:184:y:2003:i:1:p:60-73
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ner.sagepub.com/content/184/1/60.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:184:y:2003:i:1:p:60-73. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.