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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Francesco VENTURINI (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Economia) |
| Abstract: | By the mid-1990s, the extraordinary advances in semiconductors enhanced the embodied nature of information technology, fuelling the efficiency growth in computers and communication equipment industries. The consequent fall in prices enabled the rapid diffusion of these new technologies, which have thus reached the critic threshold to foster productivity growth.;In light of the recent growth pattern of the United States, this paper presents a model where the endogenous engine of development is the learningby-doing process stemming from the usage of ICT for investment and consumption.;Relying upon a two-sector framework (a' la Whelan) that distinguishes between ICT-producers and -users, our model provides a sound representation of the stylized facts of the Information Age. |
| Keywords: | ICT, learning-by-doing, productivity resurgence |
| JEL: | E21 E22 O41 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:259&r=ict |
| By: | Shane Greenstein; Jeff Prince |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the rapid diffusion of the Internet across the United States over the past decade for both households and firms. We put the Internet's diffusion into the context of economic diffusion theory where we consider costs and benefits on the demand and supply side. We also discuss several pictures of the Internet's physical presence using some of the current main techniques for Internet measurement. We highlight different economic perspectives and explanations for the digital divide, that is, unequal availability and use of the Internet. |
| JEL: | O3 L8 R0 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12182&r=ict |
| By: | Bronwyn H. Hall; Megan MacGarvie |
| Abstract: | We investigate the value creation or destruction associated with the introduction of software patents in the United States in two ways. The first looks at the cumulative abnormal returns to ICT firms around the time of important court decisions impacting software patents, and the second analyzes the relationship between firms' stock market value, the sector in which they operate, and their holdings of software patents cross-sectionally. We find that the extension of patentability to software was initially negative for software firms, especially for those producing application software or services. We also find that software patents are positively and significantly associated with Tobin's Q, and that the market's valuation of software patents increased following changes in the USPTO's treatment of software patents in 1995. |
| JEL: | O34 L63 L86 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12195&r=ict |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Philippe Aghion; Claire Lelarge; John Van Reenen; Fabrizio Zilibotti |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a framework to analyze the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization decisions of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we equate with publicly available information. However, the manager can use her informational advantage to make choices that are not in the best interest of the principal. As the available public information about the specific technology increases, the trade-off shifts in favor of centralization. We show that firms closer to the technological frontier, firms in more heterogeneous environments and younger firms are more likely to choose decentralization. Using three datasets of French and British firms in the 1990s we report robust correlations consistent with these predictions. |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O33 F23 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12206&r=ict |
| By: | Fritz Rahmeyer (University of Augsburg, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Evolutionary economics in the initial version of Nelson and Winter is concentrated on the analysis of the evolution of industries and markets and in that entrepreneurial innovation activities. But a theory of the firm beneath the level of the industry is not taken into account to a large extent. In order to widen its fundamental principles a resource-based, and as its extension, a knowledge-based view of the firm, both originated in the field of Business Strategy, are seen as promising candidates to close this gap within evolutionary economics. Industry dynamics as the evolution of a population of firms in this way is supplemented by a more detailed characterization of the internal structure of individual firms. It is the fundamental question with regard to the adequacy of an evolutionary interpretation of firm behaviour and development as to what extend a firm and its individual activities are considered to be capable of purposefully and actively influencing its environment, on the one hand, and are blindly selected by environmental pressure, on the other hand. In this way firms become intendedly heterogenous concerning market performance and organizational structure. Regarding the general topic of a theory of the firm, a unified approach will not be constructed, but more likely a hybrid one being composed of technological, institutional and efficiency-based elements. |
| Keywords: | economic evolution; resource-based view; knowledge-based view of the firm; theory of the firm management |
| JEL: | B52 D21 D83 L23 |
| Date: | 2006–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0283&r=ict |
| By: | Bitzer, Jürgen (Free University, Berlin); Schröder, Philipp J.H. (Department of Organisation and Management, Aarhus School of Business) |
| Abstract: | No abstract |
| Keywords: | No keywords; |
| Date: | 2005–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:aardom:2005_012&r=ict |