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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Seung-Hyun Hong (University of Illinois); Leonardo Rezende (University of Illinois); |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to distinguish state dependence (or lock-in) from unobserved preferences in the decision to adopt Linux or Windows as the operating system for computer servers. To this end, we use detailed survey data of over 100,000 establishments in the United States. Without accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in establishment-specific preferences for operating systems, we find a strong positive correlation between the current choice and the previous choice, suggesting potentially high switching costs and lock-in. To account for unobserved preferences for either operating system, we impose weak identifying assumptions and employ recently developed dynamic discrete choice panel data methods (Arellano and Carrasco 2003). The results show little or no evidence of state dependence, implying that unobserved preferences, rather than switching costs and lock-in, are more important factors in the adoption decision. Once taste heterogeneity is taken into account, we additionally find little evidence of network effects between server operating systems and non-server operating systems. |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:0705&r=ict |
| By: | Matthias Schonlau; Arthur Van Soest; Arie Kapteyn; Mick P. Couper |
| Abstract: | Web surveys have several advantages compared to more traditional surveys with in-person interviews, telephone interviews, or mail surveys. Their most obvious potential drawback is that they may not be representative of the population of interest because the sub-population with access to Internet is quite specific. This paper investigates propensity scores as a method for dealing with selection bias in web surveys. The authors' main example has an unusually rich sampling design, where the Internet sample is drawn from an existing much larger probability sample that is representative of the US 50+ population and their spouses (the Health and Retirement Study). They use this to estimate propensity scores and to construct weights based on the propensity scores to correct for selectivity. They investigate whether propensity weights constructed on the basis of a relatively small set of variables are sufficient to correct the distribution of other variables so that these distributions become representative of the population. If this is the case, information about these other variables could be collected over the Internet only. Using a backward stepwise regression they find that at a minimum all demographic variables are needed to construct the weights. The propensity adjustment works well for many but not all variables investigated. For example, they find that correcting on the basis of socio-economic status by using education level and personal income is not enough to get a representative estimate of stock ownership. This casts some doubt on the common procedure to use a few basic variables to blindly correct for selectivity in convenience samples drawn over the Internet. Alternatives include providing non-Internet users with access to the Web or conducting web surveys in the context of mixed mode surveys. |
| Keywords: | surveys, methodology, computer programs |
| JEL: | C42 C80 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ran:wpaper:279&r=ict |
| By: | Federico Biagi (Università di Padova); Danilo Cavapozzi (Università di Padova); Raffaele Miniaci (Università di Brescia) |
| Abstract: | In our work we study the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills and their utilization in the retirement decision. We provide empirical evidence based on Italian panel data in favour of the hypothesis that - ceteris paribus - better educated male employees with ICT know-how retire later. Such effect is stronger the longer the time horizon considered, and its magnitude is remarkably larger than the one observed in US and Germany in previous studies. We also document that ICT do not play a crucial role in the retirement decision of women. Our results are robust to the estimation strategy adopted. |
| Keywords: | retirement, skill-biased technological change |
| JEL: | J26 J24 J14 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0042&r=ict |
| By: | Beckerman, Carina (Dept. of Business Administration, Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Improving the artefacts a knowledge worker uses and how he or she exercises his or her knowledge is a desire that is part of being professional, especially since we are supposed to live in a knowledge society. In the knowledge society there is a continuous structuring and re-structuring, construction and re-construction and learning and re-learning going on due to implementing new information and communication technology. But many of these so called IT-projects fail, especially within health care in spite of management spending huge amounts of money on them. This paper focuses on and wants to create an awareness of how an artefact such as a new knowledge management system becomes a driving force behind expanding the knowledge of an anesthesist and has implications for continuous learning among a group of employees at the anesthesia and intensive care clinic. Implementing new technology is an underestimated opportunity for learning. More importantly, this paper also suggests that a significant educational effort is taking place in society channelled through many these IT-projects, even when they fail. |
| Keywords: | professional artefacts; learning; knowledge management system; knowledge management; the knowledge society. |
| Date: | 2007–08–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:hastba:2007_008&r=ict |
| By: | Massimo D'Antoni; Maria Alessandra Rossi |
| Abstract: | This article aims at clarifying the role played by licenses within the increasingly relevant Open Source Software (OSS) phenomenon. In particular, the article explores from a theoretical point of view the comparative properties of the two main categories of OSS license--copyleft and non-copyleft licenses--in terms of their ability to stimulate innovation and coordination of development efforts. In order to do so, the paper relies on an incomplete contracting model. The model shows that, in spite of the fact that copyleft licenses entail the enjoyment of a narrower set of rights by both licensors and licensees, they may be preferred to non-copyleft licenses when coordination of complementary investments in development is important. It thus provides a non-ideologically-based explanation for the puzzling evidence showing the dominance, in terms of diffusion, of copyleft licenses. |
| Keywords: | intellectual property rights, open source, copyright, copyleft, GPL license, incentives to innovation. |
| JEL: | L17 O34 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:510&r=ict |