IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/germec/v8y2007i2p146-173.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • Basu Susanto

    (Boston College and NBER,Boston, United States of America)

  • Fernald John

    (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, San Francisco, United States of America)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Basu Susanto & Fernald John, 2007. "Information and Communications Technology as a General-Purpose Technology: Evidence from US Industry Data," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 146-173, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:germec:v:8:y:2007:i:2:p:146-173
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0475.2007.00402.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2007.00402.x
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2007.00402.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:bpj:germec:v:8:y:2007:i:2:p:146-173. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

    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.