tailieunhanh - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE WORLD ECONOMY∗

New Zealand’s economy-wide labour productivity level (GDP per hour worked) is below the OECD mean. New Zealand’s labour productivity growth rate was also below the OECD mean, but similar to Australia’s from the 1980s until the onset of the global fi nancial crisis. New Zealand and Australian statistical agencies report labour productivity across a narrower set of industries called the ‘measured sector’ of the economy. Under this narrower but more accurate measure, New Zealand’s average labour productivity growth has been a little higher than that of Australia’s since 1988. New Zealand’s labour productivity refl ects its levels of capital. | INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE WORLD ECONOMY by Dale W. Jorgenson and Khuong Vu 1. Introduction. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of investment in information technology IT equipment and software on the recent resurgence in world economic growth. The crucial role of IT investment in the growth of the . economy has been thoroughly documented and widely discussed. 1 Jorgenson 2001 has shown that the remarkable behavior of IT prices is the key to understanding the resurgence of American economic growth. This behavior can be traced to developments in semiconductor technology that are widely understood by technologists and economists. Jorgenson 2003 has shown that the growth of IT investment jumped to double-digit levels after 1995 in all the G7 economies - Canada France Germany Italy Japan and the United Kingdom as well as the United These economies account for nearly half of world output and a much larger share of world IT investment. The surge of IT investment after 1995 Department of Economics Harvard University 122 Littauer Center Cambridge MA 02138-3001. The Economic and Social Research Institute provided financial support for work on the G7 economies from its program on international collaboration through the Nomura Research Institute. Alessandra Colecchia Mun S. Ho Kazuyuki Motohashi Koji Nomura Jon Samuels Kevin J. Stiroh Marcel Timmer and Bart van Ark provided valuable data. The Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics assisted with data for the and Statistics Canada contributed the data for Canada. We are grateful to all of them but retain sole responsibility for any remaining deficiencies. 1See Jorgenson and Kevin Stiroh 2000 and Stephen Oliner and Daniel Sichel 2000 . The growth accounting methodology employed in this literature is discussed by Jorgenson Mun Ho and Stiroh 2005 and summarized by Jorgenson 2005 . 2Nadim Ahmad Paul Schreyer and Anita Wolfl 2004 have analyzed the impact of IT investment in