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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Derksen, Laura (University of Toronto); Leclerc, Catherine Michaud (University of Toronto); Souza, Pedro CL (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Young people across the developing world are gaining access to the internet. Can schools introduce the internet in a way that promotes reading and learning? We provide Wikipedia access to a random subset of secondary school students in Malawian boarding schools. This setting is unique: students otherwise have limited study resources and no internet access. Students used Wikipedia intensively, and found it accessible and trustworthy. They developed a preference for Wikipedia over other online sources, including for information about news events and safe sex. We find a large impact on English final exam scores (.11 standard deviations), especially for low achievers (.21 standard deviations). Students also used Wikipedia to study for Biology, and exam scores increased for low achievers (.17 standard deviations). Our results imply that Wikipedia is a source of simple and engaging reading material, and can improve English language skills. It is also a source of accessible study material that increases study time productivity for low achievers. |
| Keywords: | JEL Classification: I21, I28, O15 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:450&r=all |
| By: | Jong-Wha Lee; Do Won Kwak; Eunbi Song |
| Abstract: | This study examines how aging affects labor productivity using industry-level data of Japan and Korea. The analysis shows that, for both Japan and Korea, aging has positive effects on labor productivity when older workers are working in industries with a large share of information and communication technology (ICT) in the capital stock. We also find that, on average, older workers exert positive effects on labor productivity across all industries when they are low-educated in Japan and high-educated in Korea. In addition, a complementary effect between ICT capital and older workers is observed for both high- and low-educated workers in Japan but only for low-educated workers in Korea. We discuss the interplay among educational attainment, industry characteristics, and production techniques to explain the differences between the two countries in the productivity of their older workers. |
| Keywords: | aging, ICT capital, productivity, Japan, Korea |
| JEL: | J11 J14 O41 O47 O53 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2020-01&r=all |
| By: | Liu, Chuan; Saam, Marianne |
| Abstract: | To what extent have economies become better off because of the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT)? We analyze this question based on a growth accounting approach at the level of final output. This approach traces productivity improvements not within sectors but within value chains. It allows judging in a better way to what extent more or better products have become available to final users, in particular consumers, as a result of the diffusion of ICT. A main result is that more than half of the productivity gains related to ICT capital deepening for manufactured goods are contributed by upstream industries. The major part of this contribution is domestic rather than foreign. Moreover, the high sectoral growth in total factor productivity (TFP) in the ICT sector contributes only moderately to TFP growth in non-ICT value chains via the use of intermediates. |
| Keywords: | ICT,economic growth,productivity,value chains,growth accounting |
| JEL: | E22 F62 O47 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:828&r=all |
| By: | Obschonka, Martin; Lee, Neil; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Eichstaedt, johannes Christopher; Ebert, Tobias |
| Abstract: | There is increasing interest in the potential of artificial intelligence and Big Data (e.g., generated via social media) to help understand economic outcomes and processes. But can artificial intelligence models, solely based on publicly available Big Data (e.g., language patterns left on social media), reliably identify geographical differences in entrepreneurial personality/culture that are associated with entrepreneurial activity? Using a machine learning model processing 1.5 billion tweets by 5.25 million users, we estimate the Big Five personality traits and an entrepreneurial personality profile for 1,772 U.S. counties. We find that these Twitter-based personality estimates show substantial relationships to county-level entrepreneurship activity, accounting for 20% (entrepreneurial personality profile) and 32% (all Big Five trait as separate predictors in one model) of the variance in local entrepreneurship and are robust to the introduction in the model of conventional economic factors that affect entrepreneurship. We conclude that artificial intelligence methods, analysing publically available social media data, are indeed able to detect entrepreneurial patterns, by measuring territorial differences in entrepreneurial personality/culture that are valid markers of actual entrepreneurial behaviour. More importantly, such social media datasets and artificial intelligence methods are able to deliver similar (or even better) results than studies based on millions of personality tests (self-report studies). Our findings have a wide range of implications for research and practice concerned with entrepreneurial regions and eco-systems, and regional economic outcomes interacting with local culture. |
| Date: | 2018–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:c62tn&r=all |
| By: | Tiago Cravo Oliveira Hashiguchi (OECD) |
| Abstract: | Telemedicine is being used across OECD countries to deliver health care in a wide range of specialties, for numerous conditions and through varied means. A growing body of evidence suggests that care delivered via telemedicine can be both safe and effective, in some cases with better outcomes than conventional face-to-face care. Telemedicine services can also be cost-effective in different settings and contexts. However, despite these benefits, these services still represent a small fraction of all health care activity and spending. Important barriers to wider use remain, with providers and patients facing regulatory uncertainty, patchy financing and reimbursement, and vague governance. Due to inequalities in health and digital literacy, patients that most stand to benefit are also often those that are least able to access and make use of telemedicine. Telemedicine has the potential to improve effectiveness, efficiency and equity in health care, but can also introduce new risks and amplify existing inequalities. |
| JEL: | I1 H51 O33 |
| Date: | 2020–01–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaad:116-en&r=all |
| By: | gopal, ganesh; Solanky, Debanjum Singh; Rajamanickam, Govindaraj |
| Abstract: | As we move towards more data intensive, device centric global communication networks, our ability to usefully harvest these large datastores is degrading. The widening asym-metry in the explosive growth of data versus our ability to use it, is forcing us towards centralized analytics. This splintered concentration of data further consolidates analytical capabilities in the hands of the few and divides the network into the analysors and the analysed. The fracturing of the system into opaque datastores and analytics blocks creates a strong positive feedback loop and has a significant negative impact on the stability, transparency and freedom of the network. This paper attempted to identify problems associated with the internet, internet dependent business models and reviewing available solutions and discuss possible solutions which became necessary. |
| Date: | 2018–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:apd5r&r=all |
| By: | GAUTIER Axel, (Université de Liège, CORE and CESifo); LAMESCH Joe, (Université de Liège) |
| Abstract: | Over the period 2015-2017, the five giant technologically leading firms, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM) acquired 175 companies, from small start-ups to billion dollar deals. By investigating this intense M&A, this paper ambitions a better understanding of the Big Five’s strategies. To do so, we identify 6 different user groups gravitating around these multi-sided companies along with each company’s most important market segments. We then track their mergers and acquisitions and match them with the segments. This exercise shows that these five firms use M&A activity mostly to strengthen their core market segments but rarely to expand their activities into new ones. Furthermore, most of the acquired products are shut down post acquisition, which suggests that GAFAM mainly acquire firm’s assets (functionality, technology, talent or IP) to integrate them in their ecosystem rather than the products and users themselves. For these tech giants, therefore, acquisition appears to be a substitute for in-house R&D. Finally, from our check for possible «killer acquisitions», it appears that just a single one in our sample could potentially be qualified as such. |
| Keywords: | mergers, GAFAM, platform, digital markets, competition policy, killer acquisition |
| JEL: | D43 K21 L40 L86 G34 |
| Date: | 2020–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2020001&r=all |
| By: | Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroon); Nicholas M. Odhiambo (Pretoria, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | This study assesses how enhancing information and communication technology (ICT) affects life insurance and non-life insurance in a panel of forty-eight African countries with data for the period 2004-2014. The adopted ICT dynamics are: mobile phone penetration, internet penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions. The empirical evidence is based on Generalized Method of Moments. The results show that enhancing mobile phone penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions has a positive net effect on life insurance consumption while enhancing fixed broadband subscriptions also has a positive net impact of on non-life insurance penetration. |
| Keywords: | Insurance; Information technology |
| JEL: | I28 I30 L96 O16 O55 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exs:wpaper:19/100&r=all |
| By: | M, Mirfan; Gani, H. Mursalim Umar; Serang, Serlin; Arifin, H. Zaenal; Jamali, Hisnol |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study was to analyze the relation of competency, motivation and utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) on job satisfaction and lecturer’s performance at five College of informatics management and computer technique in Makassar. This study uses survey data collection Cross section through a questionnaire. As many as 285 lecturers are eligible to be population and determination of a sample of 160 respondents using the formula Slovin. Data from the questionnaires were analyzed using Structural Equation Model (SEM) with AMOS assistance. The results found that the competence, motivation and utilization of ICT positive and significant effect on job satisfaction and lecturer performance. Job satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on the lecturer’s performance. Competence, motivation and ICT have a positive and significant effect on lecturer’s performance through job satisfaction. |
| Date: | 2018–09–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:q7w5y&r=all |
| By: | Francesco Avvisati |
| Abstract: | Evolving technologies have changed the ways people read and exchange information, whether at home, at school or in the workplace. When PISA assessed 15-year-olds’ reading literacy for the first time, in 2000, only in two countries – Canada and Norway – did more than 50% of the population use the Internet. In 2009, about 15% of students in OECD countries, on average, reported that they did not have access to the Internet at home. By 2018, that proportion had shrunk to less than 5%. The growth in access to online services is likely to be even larger than suggested by these percentages, which hide the exponential growth in the quality of Internet services and the explosion of mobile Internet services over the past decade. In many respects, the challenges that readers encounter today, in a highly digitalised environment, are greater than those encountered in the world of printed books, manuals and newspapers. To navigate successfully the information provided in electronic text formats, people need to use complex strategies to analyse, synthesise, integrate and interpret relevant information from multiple sources when they read. But are students – and education systems – rising to the challenge of mastering reading skills for the digital age? |
| Date: | 2020–01–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduddd:103-en&r=all |
| By: | Agata Mihaela Popescu (Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University, Bucharest, Romania) |
| Abstract: | At the present, labor legislation is at a crossroads, the changes at both national and European level have shown that a radical change of vision on working relations is necessary. One of the most recent legislative changes is the regulation of a new type of special contract – tele-working. In support of the flexibility of the labor relations and their modernization. Romanian legislation has adapted to these requirements, by adopting the Law no. 81/2018 on regulation of teleworking activity, in force since April 5, 2018. The scope of the Law is undefined, while the text of Art. 1 par. 2 regulates that “This law shall apply in the fields of activity where it is possible to carry out tele-work activity†. In other words, without specifying who is the addressees of the law, it concerns a category of employees who are connected to the realities of communication technology in a broad sense, to the latest news of the field in which they work and, in general, to the daily universe through the Internet, social networking and mobile applications. In other words, the recipients are the workers involved in the information society through its use and development, and not every worker holding a terminal that can connect to information and communication technology, since it is a “tele-employee†only the one who is willing to use the equipment needed to deliver the result of his work in an employment relationship, of course in agreement with the employer. |
| Keywords: | labor legislation, labor relations, tele-work, tele-employees |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:ipaper:021ap&r=all |
| By: | Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroon); John Kuada (Aalborg University, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Knowledge has emerged as a fundamental driver of economic growth and development by inter alia improving the effectiveness and efficiency of economic projects and boosting the process of finding new avenues of addressing developmental policy syndromes. Recent evidence suggests that Africa is on the threshold of significant and sustainable economic growth if its human and material resources can be effectively mobilised to support the process (Kuada & Mensah, 2017; Asongu & Tchamyou, 2019). Consequently, the World Bank’s Knowledge Economy Framework aims to explore and support the extent to which current policies in African countries affect the knowledge development process (and thereby competitiveness) on the continent. A knowledge economy is an economy in which economic prosperity largely depends on the accessibility, quality and quantity of information available, instead of the means of production (Asongu, 2017a, 2017b). This themed issue of Contemporary Social Science-‘Building Knowledge Economies in Africa’ - consists of papers that focus on, but are not limited to, the four dimensions of the World Bank’s Knowledge Economy Index. These are: information and communication technology, education, economic incentives and institutional regime, and innovation (Tchamyou, 2017). The themed issue engages with high quality contributions which, taken together, address the drivers towards knowledge-based economies. This introduction provides a context for understanding the importance of building knowledge economies in Africa and summarises the main contributions to the themed issue. The paper ends by advising scholars and policy makers regarding the risks associated with a colonial view of knowledge- notably the importance of proposing knowledge-based policies while avoiding hegemonic paradigms and hierarchical constructs. In summary, the issue consists of a set of theoretically informed, empirically robust, policy-relevant and accessible articles for both specialists and non-specialists. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge economy; Development; Africa |
| JEL: | O10 O30 O38 O55 O57 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exs:wpaper:20/002&r=all |
| By: | Khatiwada , Sameer (Asian Development Bank); Veloso, Mia Kim (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | One of the less well-understood channels through which technology affects labor market outcomes is the creation of new types of work. In this paper, we investigate the emergence of new occupations by comparing various classifications of occupations and predicting probabilities to access them given workers’ characteristics. Systematic comparisons of successive lists of National Classification of Occupations in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam find that most new job titles are primarily information and communication technology- and data-related positions within professional and associate professional occupational divisions. When utilizing microdata of India and Viet Nam, we find that emerging occupations, defined as occupation groups with new job titles, pay higher wages than nonemerging occupations. Further, when using logit models to predict chances of accessing emerging occupations given workers’ characteristics, the probability of success is greater for workers who are male, tertiary educated, urbanized, and employed in the service sectors. Adjusted predictions by education and sector show that access to emerging occupations is highest among tertiary-educated workers in services, and that chances of success vary greatly across different age groups. |
| Keywords: | industries; innovation; new work; occupations |
| JEL: | J21 J23 J24 O14 O33 |
| Date: | 2019–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0576&r=all |