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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Beatriz Sofía Gil-Clavel (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Emilio Zagheni (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Valeria Bordone (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Qualitative studies have found that the use of Information and Communication Technologies is related to an enhanced quality of life for older adults, as these technologies might act as a medium to access social capital regardless of distance. In order to quantitatively study the association between older people’s characteristics and the likelihood of having a network of close friends offline and online, we use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and from Facebook. Using a novel approach to analyze aggregated and anonymous Facebook data within a regression framework, we show that the associations between having close friends and age, sex and being a parent are the same offline and online. Migrants who use internet are less likely to have close friends offline, but migrants who are Facebook users are more likely to have close friends online, suggesting that digital relationships may compensate for the potential lack of offline close friendships among older migrants. |
| Keywords: | Europe, old age, social capital, social network |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2020-035&r=all |
| By: | Kathrin Wernsdorf; Markus Nagler; Martin Watzinger |
| Abstract: | Does access to information and communication technologies (ICT) increase innovation? We examine this question by exploiting the staggered adoption of BITNET across U.S. universities in the 1980s. BITNET, an early version of the Internet, enabled e-mail-based knowledge exchange and collaboration among academics. After the adoption of BITNET, university-connected inventors increase patenting substantially. The effects are driven by collaborative patents by new inventor teams. The patents induced by ICT are exclusively science-related and stem from fields where knowledge can be codified easily. In contrast, we neither find an effect on patents not building on science nor on inventors unconnected to universities. |
| Keywords: | ICT, communication, knowledge diffusion, science-based innovation, university-patenting |
| JEL: | H54 L23 L86 O30 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8646&r=all |
| By: | Upendram, Sreedhar; Wilson, Brad; Baxter, Isabella |
| Abstract: | Digital divide is defined as the gap between underserved communities that have poor or limited internet access and the communities that have relatively better access to broadband internet (25 megabits per second download/3 megabits per second upload speeds). While the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claims that broadband internet is not available to 24.7 million people in the United States, data from Microsoft indicates that 162.8 million people (almost half of the population of the United States) do not use internet at broadband speeds (Hegle and Wilding, 2019). Broadband internet is still out of reach for many communities in Tennessee, with only 53.4 percent of residents adopting broadband in 2019 (FCC, 2019). With the shift to digital technology and widespread applications, access to broadband internet has become critical for economic development, specifically for education, work force, health care and recreation. Impacts of the digital divide have been broadly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Where possible, employees have shifted to working at home. Similarly, K-12 schools, colleges and universities are offering classes online, and many residents are increasingly choosing online methods to order retail goods and services. Additionally, people need broadband internet to access up-to-date health care, prescriptions and health services information about COVID-19 from news and media outlets, as well as the state and federal government. The purpose of this publication is to inform Extension agents, local government leaders and economic development professionals about the digital divide, the relative measures of socioeconomic status and broadband infrastructure across Tennessee. This publication is to be used in conjunction with the county digital divide index profiles available at https://utextensionced.tennessee.edu/dig ital-divide-index/. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Public Economics, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession |
| Date: | 2020–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:utaeer:307220&r=all |
| By: | Maria Sironi (Social Research Institute, University College London); Ridhi Kashyap (Department of Sociology and Nuffield College, University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | The Internet has fundamentally altered how we communicate, access information and who we can interact with. These features are all potentially salient for mate search – but the implications of Internet access for partnership formation are theoretically ambiguous. We examine the association between Internet access and heterosexual and homosexual partnership formation using nationally-representative data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) from the US. Across both data sources, we find that the association between Internet access and partnership formation (in the NLSY) and partnership status (in the CPS) is age-dependent. While negative at younger ages, the association becomes positive as individuals grow older and reach their mid- to late-20s for both homosexual and heterosexual partnerships. We interpret these results to suggest that the Internet facilitates union formation when individuals approach the stage in their life course when they feel ready to commit to a long-term partnership. |
| Keywords: | Internet Access; Technology; Union Formation; Life Course; NLSY97; CPS.JEL |
| JEL: | J12 O51 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qss:dqsswp:2016&r=all |
| By: | Tien Ha Duong, My; Van Nguyen, Diep; Thanh Nguyen, Phong |
| Abstract: | Human resources development is one of the main issues in the socio-economic development strategy and the transform of any region in the context of Industry 4.0. However, Vietnamese human resources have been poorly evaluated in the areas of quality, lack of dynamism, and creativity. Therefore, this paper presents a fuzzy logic approach to ranking seven skills shortage in Vietnam’s Labor Market, namely lifelong learning, adaptive capacity, information technology capacity, creativity and innovation capacity, problem-solving capacity, foreign language competency, and organizing and managing competency. The results showed that the problem-solving skill has the largest gap between an enterprise’s requirements and the actual response of employees. |
| Keywords: | fuzzy logic; industry 4.0; human resources; skill shortage; Vietnam |
| JEL: | B16 F6 J01 O14 |
| Date: | 2019–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103512&r=all |
| By: | Amat Adarov (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw)); David Klenert (European Commission - JRC); Robert Marschinski (European Commission - JRC); Robert Stehrer (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw)) |
| Abstract: | There are marked differences in productivity dynamics between countries as well as industries, often leading to substantial performance gaps, such as the gap in labour productivity between the EU and the US. In this article, we use the 2019 release of the EU KLEMS database to look into the drivers of productivity. In particular, we analyse how different types of capital (including intangible capital), foreign direct investment, integration into global value chains and EU integration affect labour productivity. Key findings are that intangible Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capital is a strong driver of productivity both at sectoral and aggregate levels, even more so than tangible ICT capital. Furthermore, backward global value chain integration and EU integration are positively associated with labour productivity. Contrary to expectations, we do not find evidence of a productivity-enhancing effect of foreign direct investment. Finally, we estimate by how much the productivity gap between the EU and the US could be reduced through different ICT investment policies. |
| Keywords: | productivity, productivity gap, digitalisation, ICT capital, FDI, global value chains, intangible capital |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc122068&r=all |
| By: | Eric Danan (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - CY - CY Cergy Paris Université); Thibault Gajdos (LPC - Laboratoire de psychologie cognitive - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - AMU - Aix Marseille Université); Jean-Marc Tallon (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Many popular internet platforms use so-called collaborative filtering systems to give personalized recommendations to their users, based on other users who provided similar ratings for some items. We propose a novel approach to such recommendation systems by viewing a recommendation as a way to extend an agent's expressed preferences, which are typically incomplete, through some aggregate of other agents' expressed preferences. These extension and aggregation requirements are expressed by an Acceptance and a Pareto principle, respectively. We characterize the recommendation systems satisfying these two principles and contrast them with collaborative filtering systems, which typically violate the Pareto principle. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-02973924&r=all |
| By: | Hoang, Ha |
| Abstract: | Industrial Revolution 4.0 is taking place strongly and has gained a lot of special attention from the public recently. For the financial world, this revolution has given birth to Fintech – a generation of start-up companies with advanced technology based on the Internet. Most Fintech companies start out with payment services, but in many other areas of the financial world, by their own strategies, Fintech is competing directly or indirectly with segments that are the monopoly of traditional financial services such as capital mobilization, lending, asset management, etc. The results show that Fintech has had a tremendous impact on the financial world and traditional financial institutions. However, the challenges and risks of this start-up generation should not be taken seriously and neglected their positive impacts such as promoting innovation, increasing competition, better serving customers. We also believe that Fintech will be a promising land for startups in Vietnam. As many studies in the world have shown, the government need to observe closely, but should not lay down rules too soon or too closely because it can extinguish a field that has many advantages for Vietnam in the 4.0 revolution. This is also an important citation for further research in this field in Vietnam. |
| Date: | 2020–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:n7vqg&r=all |
| By: | Martina Francesca Ferracane; Janez Kren; Erik van der Mare |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how policies regulating the cross-border movement and domestic use of electronic data on the internet impact the productivity of firms in sectors relying on electronic data. In doing so, we collect regulatory information on a group of developed economies and create an index that measures the regulatory restrictiveness of each country’s data policies. The index is based on observable policy measures that explicitly inhibit the cross-border movement and domestic use of data. Using cross-country firm-level and industry-level data, we analyse econometrically the extent to which these data regulations over time impact the productivity performance of downstream firms and industries respectively. We show that stricter data policies have a negative and significant impact on the performance of downstream firms in sectors reliant on electronic data. This adverse effect is stronger for countries with strong technology networks, for servicified firms, and holds for several robustness checks. |
| Keywords: | Cross-border data flow, regulatory policies, firm-level productivity, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2019/28&r=all |
| By: | Böckerman, Petri; Laine, Liisa T.; Nurminen, Mikko; Saxell, Tanja |
| Abstract: | Poor information flows hamper coordination, potentially leading to suboptimal decisions in health care. We examine the effects of a nationwide policy of information integration on the quality of prescribing. We use the rollout of an electronic prescribing system in Finland and prescription-level administrative data. We find no effect on the probability of co-prescribing harmful drug combinations in urban regions. In rural regions, this probability reduces substantially, by 35 percent. The effect is driven by prescriptions from unspecialized physicians and from multiple physicians. Improving the local information environment thus enhances coordination and narrows differences in the quality of prescribing. |
| Keywords: | health information technology, digitalization, e-prescribing, integration, quality of prescribing, public policy, Local public finance and provision of public services, H51, H75, |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:135&r=all |