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ICT Services and their Prices: What do they tell us about Productivity and Technology?

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Abstract

This paper reassesses the link between ICT prices, technology, and productivity. To understand how the ICT sector could come to the rescue of a whole economy, we extend a multi-sector model due to Oulton (2012) to include ICT services (e.g., cloud services) and use it to calibrate the steady-state contribution of the ICT sector to growth in aggregate U.S. labor productivity. Because ICT technologies diffuse through the economy increasingly via purchases of cloud and data analytic services that are not fully accounted for in the standard narrative on ICT's contribution to economic growth, the contribution of ICT to growth in output per hour going forward is found to be substantially larger than generally thought--1.4 percentage points per year. One reason why the estimated contribution is so large is that official ICT asset prices are found to substantially understate the productivity of the sector. The model developed in this paper also has implications for the relationship between prices for ICT services and prices for the capital stocks (i.e., ICT assets) used to supply them. In particular, ICT service prices may diverge from asset prices and capture productivity gains from ICT asset management by the sector.

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  • David M. Byrne & Carol Corrado, 2017. "ICT Services and their Prices: What do they tell us about Productivity and Technology?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-015, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2017-15
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2017.015r1
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    1. David M. Byrne & Carol Corrado & Daniel E. Sichel, 2017. "Own-Account IT Equipment Investment," FEDS Notes 2017-10-04-2, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. David Byrne & Carol Corrado & Daniel Sichel, 2020. "The Rise of Cloud Computing: Minding Your Ps, Qs and Ks," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century, pages 519-551, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jaison R. Abel & Ernst R. Berndt & Alan G. White, 2007. "Price Indexes for Microsoft," NBER Chapters, in: Hard-to-Measure Goods and Services: Essays in Honor of Zvi Griliches, pages 269-289, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    6. David M. Byrne, 2015. "Prices for Data Storage Equipment and the State of IT Innovation," FEDS Notes 2015-07-01, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Berndt, Ernst R. & Fuss, Melvyn A., 1986. "Productivity measurement with adjustments for variations in capacity utilization and other forms of temporary equilibrium," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1-2), pages 7-29.
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    9. David M. Byrne & Carol Corrado, 2015. "Recent Trends in Communications Equipment Prices," FEDS Notes 2015-09-29, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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    Cited by:

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    2. Cecilia Jona-Lasinio & Stefano Schiavo & Klaus Weyerstrass, 2019. "How to revive productivity growth?," EconPol Policy Reports 13, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    3. Terry Gregory & A.M. Salomons & Ulrich Zierahn, 2016. "Racing With or Against the Machine? Evidence from Europe," Working Papers 16-05, Utrecht School of Economics.
    4. Barth, Erling & Davis, James C. & Freeman, Richard B. & McElheran, Kristina, 2023. "Twisting the demand curve: Digitalization and the older workforce," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 443-467.
    5. Tomaso Duso & Alexander Schiersch, 2022. "Let's Switch to the Cloud: Cloud Adaption and Its Effect on IT Investment and Productivity," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2017, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Gilbert Cette & Aurélien Devillard & Vincenzo Spiezia, 2022. "Growth Factors in Developed Countries: A 1960–2019 Growth Accounting Decomposition," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(2), pages 159-185, June.
    7. Rafael Myro, 2019. "A policy for a new industrial revolution," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 46(3), pages 403-414, September.
    8. Byrne, David M. & Corrado, Carol A., 2020. "The increasing deflationary influence of consumer digital access services," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    9. Robert J. Gordon & Hassan Sayed, 2020. "Transatlantic Technologies: The Role of ICT in the Evolution of U.S. and European Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 27425, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Choudhry, Sonam, 2021. "Is India's formal manufacturing sector ‘hollowing out’- importance of intermediate input," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 533-547.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cloud computing; Computer software and internet services; High-performance computing; ICT services; Information and communications technology; Prices; Price measurement; Productivity; Technology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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