|
on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Ayoola, Josephone; Ayoola, Gbolagade |
| Abstract: | The factors influencing the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the effect on the efficiency of maize marketing in North-Central Nigeria were analyzed; based on profit margins, factor effects and logit regression model. Results showed that age of marketers, education, regulatory bodies, market channels, marketing cost and ICT significantly affect maize marketing efficiency; and that maize marketing was price efficient but operationally inefficient (ranging from 194.83 to 399.46 percent). Sources of market information were: extension agents (53 percent), radio and television (53 percent), mobile phones (47 percent), video programs (30.5 percent), and internet (25 percent). Furthermore, the costs of mobile phones and air time, electricity, phone support services, internet services, radio and television network services, and literacy of marketers significantly influence the use of ICT. The use of mobile phones should be promoted for disseminating market information and market infrastructure should be improved. |
| Keywords: | ICT, maize, marketing efficiency., Crop Production/Industries, Marketing, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae15:211189&r=ict |
| By: | Yeşim Gürel Üçdoğruk (Dokuz Eylul University, Department of Economics); Yılmaz Kılıçaslan (Anadolu University, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Measuring the effects of innovative activities on firms’ productivity has been an active area for research for several decades, both as a policy concern and as a challenge for econometric applications. This paper attempts to analyze the relationship among innovation input, output and productivity in Turkish manufacturing firms through CDM model by adding ICT investments together with R&D as an input to innovation. The evidence is based on a panel data sample of Turkish manufacturing firms in the 2003–2010 period, constructed from the waves of the ‘Annual Manufacturing Industry Statistics’ and the four consecutive waves of ‘Community Innovation Surveys’. Regarding the model specification, the first step models the firm R&D decisions in terms of two equations: a selection equation and an intensity equation. The selection equation consists of R&D indicator variable that takes the value 1 if firm decides to perform R&D and explanatory variables affecting R&D decision. The intensity equation consists of firm’s innovative effort and a set of determinants of R&D expenditure. These two equations are estimated by using Heckman selection method. The second step models the firm innovation activity by innovation equation including ICT investment intensity and the latent innovation effort proxied by the predicted value of R&D intensity from the first step model. This equation is estimated as a bivariate probit model, assuming that most of the firm characteristics that affect product and process innovation are the same, although of course their impacts may differ. The last step estimates the productivity equation that is specified as a simple Cobb–Douglas technology with constant returns to scale, and with labor, capital and knowledge inputs, where we have “labor productivity” (real sales per employee, in logs); “investment intensity” that is our proxy for physical capital and “knowledge inputs” that are proxied by the predicted probability of product and process innovation. |
| Keywords: | R&D, ICT, innovation, productivity, Turkey |
| JEL: | L60 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eyd:cp2015:31&r=ict |
| By: | Chirag Rabari; Michael Storper |
| Abstract: | A ‘digital skin’ of the city is coming into being. This skin consists of a sensored and metered urban environment. The urban world is becoming a platform for generating data on the workings of human society, human interactions with the physical environment and manifold economic, political and social processes. The advent of the digital skin opens up many questions for urban theory and research, and many new issues for public and urban policy, which are explored in this article. |
| Keywords: | Big data; urban theory ;urban research; social science; smart cities |
| JEL: | M21 O18 O31 R50 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:63028&r=ict |
| By: | Colin Blackman (SCF Associates Ltd); Simon Forge (SCF Associates Ltd) |
| Abstract: | This report summarises the results of a study that was carried out by SCF Associates Ltd for the European Commission, Institute for Prospective and Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, Seville, Spain. Key enabling technologies (KETs) could be a crucial part of the EU’s response to the economic crisis over the past decade. More jobs and growth are expected from investments in KETs, hoping they may lead to a more prosperous society through higher skills and wages, while expanding innovative high technology exports globally. Consequently, KETs, especially the five ICT KETs examined in the following chapters, should be seen as having a strategic social importance. The initiative will catalyse not only product innovation but also the industrial process. Moving from innovation to commercialisation in a three-pillar model (RDI, pilot lines, and then full commercialisation) is its fundamental advantage over previous innovation programmes. It may assure the success of the EU’s future global competitive position, as it can stimulate high levels of skilled employment. That should address many of the grand challenges facing European society and its economy. |
| Keywords: | ICT, KETs, R&D, Innovation, Commercialisation, Micro and Nano-Electronics, Nanotechnology, Photonics, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing Systems, EU |
| JEL: | O32 O33 O52 L60 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc94357&r=ict |