nep-ict New Economics Papers
on Information and Communication Technologies
Issue of 2008‒06‒07
two papers chosen by
Walter Frisch
University Vienna

  1. The Canada-US ICT Investment Gap: An Update By Andrew Sharpe and Jean-François Arsenault
  2. Cluster Development and Knowledge Exchange in Supply Chain By Pradorn Sureephong; Nopasit Chakpitak; Laurent Buzon; Abdelaziz Bouras

  1. By: Andrew Sharpe and Jean-François Arsenault
    Abstract: In 2005, the CSLS published a report that examined spending on information and communication technology (ICT) in Canada and the United States between 1987 and 2004. It found that Canadian firms lagged considerably behind US firms in ICT spending and that this situation accounted to some extent for the lower labour productivity growth experienced in Canada. This report provides an overview of the latest developments using the most recent update of the CSLS ICT database. It finds that ICT investment spending in the United States in 2005 and 2006 continued to outpace that in Canada, increasing an average of 5.6 per cent annually in the United States compared to 3.3 per cent in Canada when expressed in current dollars. Following this trend, nominal ICT investment per worker in domestic currencies also grew faster in the United States than in Canada in 2005 and 2006, 3.7 per cent versus 1.6 per cent. The recent increase in the Canadian dollar, however, lead to a sharper decrease in ICT prices in Canada than in the United States over the 2004-2006 period. This in turn led to an increase in the level of PPP-adjusted ICT investment per worker in Canada relative to the United States from 56.5 per cent in 2004 to 58.0 per cent in 2006, continuing the positive trend started in 2000 when it stood at 49.0 per cent. While Canada’s steady relative improvement since 2000 in terms of ICT investment per worker is encouraging, the low relative level of ICT investment per worker remains problematic and should be of concern to policy-makers as ICT investment is a key driver of productivity growth.
    Keywords: Machinery and equipment investment, information and communications technology, ICT, Investment gap, Business sector, Industrial structure, Firm size
    JEL: E22 G11 J21 M00 O47 Z10
    Date: 2008–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sls:resrep:0801&r=ict
  2. By: Pradorn Sureephong (LIESP - Laboratoire d'Informatique pour l'Entreprise et les Systèmes de Production - Université Claude Bernard - Lyon I - Université Lumière - Lyon II - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon, CAMT - College of Arts, Media and Technology - Chiang Mai University); Nopasit Chakpitak (CAMT - College of Arts, Media and Technology - Chiang Mai University); Laurent Buzon (LIESP - Laboratoire d'Informatique pour l'Entreprise et les Systèmes de Production - Université Claude Bernard - Lyon I - Université Lumière - Lyon II - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon); Abdelaziz Bouras (LIESP - Laboratoire d'Informatique pour l'Entreprise et les Systèmes de Production - Université Claude Bernard - Lyon I - Université Lumière - Lyon II - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon)
    Abstract: Industry cluster and supply chain are in focus of every countries which rely on knowledge-based economy. Both focus on improving the competitiveness of firm in the industry in the different aspect. This paper tries to illustrate how the industry cluster can increase the supply chain performance. Then, the proposed methodology concentrates on the collaboration and knowledge exchange in supply chain. For improving the capability of the proposed methodology, information technology is applied to facilitate the communication and the exchange of knowledge between the actors of the supply chain within the cluster. The supply chain of French stool producer was used as a case study to validate the methodology and to demonstrate the result of the study.
    Keywords: Knowledge engineering, Logistics, Knowledge Exchange
    Date: 2008–03–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:hal-00284615_v1&r=ict

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