OECD 2003
ISBN 92-64-10128-4
Main findings
The 2001 OECD Ministerial report, “The New Economy: Beyond the Hype”, concluded that information and communications technology (ICT) is important and has the potential to contribute to more rapid growth and productivity gains in the years to come. Both the 2001 and 2002 OECD Ministerial meeting sreiterated the importance of ICT for growth performance and requested the OECD to continue its work in this area. A specific request for further work on ICT and business performance was made to the OECD in the autumn of 2001, by the US Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Evans. This report, which responds to OECD Ministers and Secretary Evans, revisits the contribution made by ICT to economic performance using more recent data to assess the degree to which the empirical findings that appeared valid at the end of 2000 remain in tact. It draws on a range of new statistics and empirical analysis that was not available for prior OECD work. This includes new empirical analysis with official firm-level data that has been carried out through an OECD-led team of researchers and statistical offices in 13 OECD countries. The study also incorporates new evidence from official statistics on the use of ICT and e-commerce by firms, which were also not available for previous work. The report also examines whether the policy conclusions from the previous OECD work require adjustment in the current economic environment. The findings and policy implications of the work are summarised below; they reaffirm and elaborate those of the OECD Growth Study.
Empirical messages
ICT continues to have strong impacts on performance
The recent slowdown has laid to rest several myths regarding the new economy: the business cycle is not dead, stock market valuations must be realistic and backed by sound profit expectations, and the ICT sector is not immune to downturns. But this should not distract from the economic benefits that have already accompanied the spread of ICT and the continued importance of ICT for growth in the years to come. It may be too early to tell how the role of ICT in growth and productivity performance will develop in the first decade of the 21st century. Some general trends can be observed, however, that suggest that ICT will continue to be a driver of growth:
● Productivity growth in the United States, the main example of ICT-led growth and productivity improvements, has continued to be strong during the recent slowdown, suggesting that part of the acceleration in productivity growth over the second half of the 1990s was indeed structural. Productivity growth in Australia and Canada, both countries characterised by ICT-intensive growth, was also strong over the recent past.
● ICT networks have now spread throughout much of the OECD business sector, and will increasingly be made to work to enhance productivity and business performance. Technological progress in ICT goods and services is continuing at a rapid pace, driving prices down and leading to a wide range of new applications. For example, business-to-consumer e-commerce continues to gain in importance, broadband is diffusing rapidly, and activity in the telecommunications sector continues to grow. Moreover, several applications, such as broadband and e-commerce, are still in their early stages and may have a large potential for future growth.
● While ICT investment has dropped off during the recent slowdown, the release of increasingly powerful microprocessors is projected to continue for the foreseeable future, which will encourage ICT investment and support further productivity growth. Nevertheless, the level of ICT investment may well be lower than that observed prior to the slowdown, however, as the 1995-2000 period was characterised by some one-off investment peaks, e.g. investments related to Y2K and the diffusion of the Internet. On the other hand, some countries may still have scope for catch-up; by 2000, Japan and the European Union area invested a similar share of total investment in ICT than the United States did in 1980.
● Further technological progress in ICT production will imply a continued positive contribution of the ICT manufacturing sector to multifactor productivity (MFP) growth, notably in countries with large ICT-producing
sectors such as Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Sweden and the United States.
The impacts of ICT differ markedly across OECD economies
Despite the importance of ICT, there continue to be marked differences in the diffusion of ICT across OECD countries. New OECD data show that the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Nordic countries and the Netherlands typically have the highest rates of diffusion of ICT. Many other OECD countries lag in the diffusion of ICT and have scope for greater uptake. It is likely that the largest economic benefits of ICT should be observed in countries with high levels of ICT diffusion. However, having the equipment or networks is not enough to derive economic benefits. Other factors, such as the regulatory environment, the availability of appropriate skills, the ability to change organisational set-ups, as well as the strength of accompanying innovations in ICT applications, affect the ability of firms to seize the benefits of ICT.
Consequently, countries with equal ICT diffusion . . . . .......(
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