Measuring convergence of China's ICT industry: An input-output analysis

The convergence of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry is ubiquitous phenomena, which can be classified from the supply/demand side or complementary/substitute relation. According to the classification, the paper measures the convergence of China's ICT sectors based on its 2002 input-output (IO) table, including five manufacturing sectors and two service sectors. Then, using IO table cross-entropy updating technique, the paper investigates the convergence evolution of four ICT manufacturing sectors from 1997 to 2002. The research finds the following conclusions. In 2002, the supply side convergence of manufacturing sectors was higher than that of service sectors, while service sectors featured a higher degree of the demand side convergence. The year of 2002 witnessed high complementary convergence between some China's ICT manufacturing and service sectors. During the period from 1997 to 2002, the supply side convergence dominated the convergence of China's ICT industry, while the demand-side convergence experienced little structural change.     

The globalization and stagnation of the ICT sectors in European countries: An input-output analysis

Recent studies of European countries indicate that the contribution of the ICT sectors to the regional economy is weakening and slowing economic growth. The present study investigates the contribution of the ICT sectors to economic performance in the European economies using Input–Output (IO) methodology. The results indicate that: (1) the multiplier effect of the ICT sectors on the rest of the economy declined significantly during the period 2000–2005 compared with 1995–2000; and (2) the decline in the output of the ICT sectors can be attributed to the loss of export advantages and technical change gains in the sectors. The results show an inability of the sectors to grasp the international market, most likely a consequence of the lack of anticipation of more rapid innovation in emerging countries.     

Information technology change,work complexity and service jobs: a contingent perspective

We examine the contingent impact of implementing an enterprise‐wide information technology system (Enterprise Resource Planning) on perceptions of work complexity in clerical, technical and managerial service sector jobs. Using matched and control samples of employee survey data, we compare pre‐ and post‐intervention perceptions of work complexity and importance of analytical skills across three hierarchical job levels: clerical, technical and managerial. We find that employees in clerical jobs, at the lowest level in the hierarchy, experience a significant increase in work complexity and need for analytical skills, whereas those in technical and managerial service jobs do not. Implications for theory, management of technology and employment policy are discussed.     

Being a woman in an ICT job: an analysis of the gender pay gap and discrimination in Spain

Despite policy initiatives aimed at promoting female access to jobs, the information and communication technology (ICT) professions have traditionally been largely monopolised by men. Segregation, gendered stereotypes and environmental factors have a clear impact on educational and professional choices, as well as on working conditions. The spread of ICT to all economic activities has meant that ICT specialists are now to be found everywhere, not only in the ICT sector where many stereotypes related to technical jobs persist. This work aims to analyse the gender wage gap and discrimination in ICT professions, with the emphasis on how working in an ICT-intensive industry might affect that situation. The study uses the Spanish Earning Structure Survey data for 2014, and applies wage decomposition techniques to the wage distribution. The results show that female ICT professionals face unfavorable working conditions, especially in highly qualified jobs and in ICT-intensive industries.     

The Role of Sector-Specific Skills in Post displacement Earnings

This article examines how one form of transferable skills, those valued within an industry or sector, may influence reemployment and earnings following permanent job loss. The empirical analysis finds limited evidence of a sector-specific component to the returns to job tenure. The importance of these skills varies across sectors, with the strongest evidence found for sectors with sustained labor demand and growing employment. There is stronger evidence, particularly in reemployment, for a broader form of sector specificity that is not related to tenure, such as job search skills and vocational training. There is also sectoral evidence that is consistent with the role of individual ability in the returns to tenure.     

Exploring the structural effects of the ICT sector in the Greek economy: A quantitative approach based on input-output and network analysis

The aim of this paper is to present a quantification approach for the calculation of the ICT sector's structural effects in the economy, focusing on the case of Greece. We construct a composite sector using a hypothetical extraction methodology based on the most recent Greek input-output table and structural business statistics at the national level. Our framework builds on the formal definition of the ICT sector provided by OECD and includes two distinct sub-components, ICT manufacturing and ICT services. In the second stage of this study, we explore the production linkages among ICT services, ICT manufacturing and the rest of the Greek industries using input-output-based and network analysis-based metrics that build on the intermediate transactions of an expanded input-output table of the Greek economy that includes the two sectors. Our empirical findings suggest that the total ICT sector has a major contribution to the Greek economy in terms of GDP and employment, but this is driven mainly by the ICT services component. We further identify that ICT services are more integrated in the Greek production network compared to ICT manufacturing, but their production linkages are underperforming in terms of meaningful contribution to the activity of the rest of the sectors. These results reflect the low integration of digital technologies and can be further embedded in a discussion on the ICT deficiencies of the Greek economy and the need for targeted regulatory and financial interventions.     

Decomposition analysis of the telecommunications sector in Indonesia: What does the cellular era shed light on?

Indonesia is currently enjoying rapid development in the telecommunications sector despite the economy having been heavily dependent for almost four decades on the two largest sectors: the manufacturing industry and trade. The telecommunications sector has played an important role in stimulating economic growth in the country during the last few years, with an annual growth rate higher than that of other sectors. This contribution is supported to a great extent by the rapid diffusion of telephony, in particular cellular telephony, as the number of subscribers increased from just 2.1 million in 1999 to 170 million in 2011. Previous studies investigating the impact of the telecommunications sector on the economy aggregate the impact of the sectors on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) without further scrutiny of what sources of growth telecommunications has contributed. Hence, an interesting question arises as to whether the achievement of cellular diffusion is also followed by structural change in the telecommunications sector. That said, this study aims to decompose the output of telecommunications into several sources of growth: domestic final demand, export effect, import substitution effect and technological coefficient effect. A particular interest in this study is to compare the source of growth concerning domestic final demand and the technological coefficient effect. The main tool for analysis in this study is the Input–Output (IO) method, while the time series of the investigation covers the period 1975–2008, allowing comparison of structural changes in the telecommunications sector between the pre- and post-cellular eras. The study found that the coefficient multiplier of the telecommunications sector, which was approximately 1.8 during the 1980s, had decreased to only 1.3 by the end of 2008. Consequently, the final demand from the telecommunications sector contributed less to economic output in the late 2000s compared to the impact in the 1980. Moreover, the cellular era that started in the early 2000s also brought about a trend of changes in telecommunications output. While final demand remains very dominant, the technological coefficient effect has diminished as the source of telecommunications output. This finding indicates a lower ability of the telecommunications sector to build an inter-industry relationship with other sectors. A possible explanation for this result is the cellular uses which are much less related to business activities than that of fixed telephony dating back to the 1970s in Indonesia.     

Long‐Run Patterns of Labour Market Polarization: Evidence from German Micro Data

The past four decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the structure of employment. In particular, the rapid increase in computational power has led to large‐scale reductions in employment in jobs that can be described as intensive in routine tasks. These jobs have been shown to be concentrated in middle‐skill occupations. A large literature on labour market polarization characterizes and measures these processes at an aggregate level. However, to date, there is little information regarding the individual worker adjustment processes related to routine‐biased technological change. Using an administrative panel dataset for Germany, we follow workers over an extended period of time and provide evidence of both the short‐term adjustment process and medium‐run effects of routine task‐intensive job loss at an individual level. We initially demonstrate a marked, and steady, shift in employment away from routine, middle‐skill, occupations. In subsequent analysis, we demonstrate how exposure to jobs with higher routine task content is associated with a reduced likelihood of being in employment in both the short term (after one year) and medium term (five years). This employment penalty to routineness of work has increased over the past four decades. More generally, we demonstrate that routine task work is associated with reduced job stability and more likelihood of experiencing periods of unemployment. However, these negative effects of routine work appear to be concentrated in increased employment to employment, and employment to unemployment transitions rather than longer periods of unemployment.     

人工智能技术会诱致劳动收入不平等吗——模型推演与分类评估

学术界近期开始关注人工智能技术对收入不平等的影响,但其收入分配效应的形成机理研究尚处于初始阶段,而且定量评估明显不足,尤其缺乏来自发展中国家的经验证据。本文基于Acemoglu and Restrepo(2018a)的人工智能技术模型,引入高技术与低技术两部门分类,推演人工智能技术的收入分配效应,结合中国2001—2016年全国及省级层面数据,分类测算其劳动收入分配的岗位更迭效应和生产率效应。结果发现:①人工智能技术在引发劳动岗位更迭的同时,非对称地改变不同技术部门生产率影响劳动收入分配,诱致高、低技术部门劳动收入差距年均扩大0.75%。②人工智能技术的岗位更迭效应倾向于在低技术部门通过自动化扩张、在高技术部门以新岗位创造方式,加剧收入不平等,而生产率效应存在门槛特征。③人工智能技术在资本和非技术密集型地区的收入分配效应更为突出,且对劳动和技术密集型地区的影响不断增大。为应对人工智能技术对劳动力市场就业结构和收入不平等的冲击,政府应健全就业培训和失业保障制度,制定差异化的区域政策,积极引导人工智能技术朝人机协作和收入平等方向发展。     

The Impact of Foreign Competition and New Technologies on the Demand for Heterogeneous Labor

This paper investigates the impact which foreign competition, investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) and investment in capital goods other than ICT-related have on the demand for heterogeneous labor. A dynamic interrelated factor demands model serves as the theoretical framework and is estimated by an ordered probit model. Cross-sectional data from a business survey in the service sector are used in the empirical analysis.It turns out that skill-biased technological change is adeterminant of the recent decline in relative demand for lowskilled labor in the business-related services sector.Expected foreign competition positively affects the demandfor unskilled workers and for workers with completed vocationaltraining, while it leaves the demand for the other skill groupsunchanged.     

Capital investment and employment in the information sector

Estimation of the employment effects of changes in capital investment is a standard tool in public policy debates. Typically, such predictions are based on employment multipliers derived from Input–Output analysis. In this paper, we measure the employment effects of changes in capital investment in the U.S. information sector by econometrically estimating an “employment multiplier” from historical data. The estimated multiplier is 10 information sector jobs for each million dollars in expenditure, and perhaps 24 new jobs per million dollars invested across the entire economy. Employment multipliers derived from the Input–Output methodology average about 16 jobs per million, but the multiplier includes jobs outside the information sector. Including employment spillovers, our estimates suggest the multipliers from Input–Output models are plausible. We also note that information sector jobs have substantially higher median earnings than the private sector average, so the economic significance of changes in information sector employment are greater than might first appear. Our findings may be useful in debates over changes in industry regulation that could affect investment.     

Social Partnership Agreements in Britain: Labor Cooperation and Compliance

This article reviews evidence on the outcomes of British social partnership agreements using matched comparisons. It concludes that in industries marked by employment decline, partnership firms often have shed jobs at a faster rate than nonpartnership firms. However, in expanding sectors, partnership firms have created jobs at a faster rate than nonpartnership rivals. There is no discernible impact of partnership on either wage settlements or union density. It is argued that we need evidence on information sharing, trust, and power and suggested that partnership agreements are unlikely to contribute significantly to union revitalization.     

ICT technologies in Europe: A study of technological diffusion and economic growth under network theory

The sector of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is one of the key instruments for the development of an economy. The literature emphasizes its capacity for both increasing productivity and generating new sources of income and wealth (5 and 20 among others). Traditionally studies on the ICT sector have focused on the analysis of its economic impact, but not on its capacity as a “bridge” for information and knowledge flows across the economic network. Following Burt's approach (1992) on structural holes, the organization of the economic network defines where and for whom new opportunities lie. The structural hole methodology allows to analyze the capacity of the ICT sector as an enabler of technological diffusion and innovation. The results show that the European ICT sector not only is important for its intermediary role in the flow of information across the economic network, but also for its low level of dependency on other sectors.     

Information and communication technologies and employment in developing countries: Effects and transmission channels

This study analyzes the effect of ICT adoption on employment in developing countries. The empirical analysis covers 70 developing countries over the 1996–2017 period. To better characterize the labor market framework in developing countries, the empirical analysis incorporates the impact of ICT adoption on underemployment and labor underutilization. Using panel data techniques, the results show that ICT adoption increases employment, underemployment, and labor underutilization in developing countries. The main transmission channels identified are FDI inflows, human capital, and economic openness. As the main policy implication, policymakers in developing countries should intensify investments in the ICT sector and develop policies conducive to FDI inflows, human capital development, and economic openness to address employment issues.     

From aperture satellite to "Internet finance": Institutionalization of ICTs in China's financial sector since 1991

China's financial industries started the process of marketization only two decades ago, but by 2017 its financial technology or fin-tech sector had taken half of the global market. The exponential diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Chinese financial contexts have generated new organizational structures and socio-political relations that have the capacity to change China's position in the world economy. Drawing upon the sociological concept of institutionalization, this paper examines how the Chinese state has integrated ICT diffusion in its formal policies and its informal rules in China's financial development since 1991. Further, it addresses the political and socio-economic consequences of these developments. Based on the analyses of government documents and sources, trade journals, and statistic data from business databases, this paper divides the Chinese institutionalization of financial technologies into three stages and identifies the primary actors and paradigms for ICT diffusions in each stage. ICT diffusion has been constitutive but also disruptive to the existing financial policies, instrumental to the commercialization of state-owned banks, and has gradually transformed into a set of formal and informal rules accepted by a network of professionals, corporations, and government agencies. The institutionalization of ICT diffusion has engendered the continuous adjustment of financial policies and propelled innovations in China's financial economy.     

Permanent Jobs,Employment Protection,and Job Content

Using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data for twenty‐one countries, I study the impact of employment protection laws (EPL) on job content. I find that workers’ use of influence, reading, writing, planning, numeracy and information and computer technology skills, and their task discretion, were higher in permanent than in temporary jobs. Moreover, stricter EPL on permanent jobs raised the gap in job content for influence, reading, writing, and planning skills used in permanent jobs versus temporary jobs.     

Intangible capital,ICT and sector growth in China

This paper explores how intangible capital affects the growth of ICT-intensive sectors in China by examining 29 sectors in 30 regions for the years 2003–2015. It is shown that the value added in ICT-intensive sectors in China will grow faster in regions with faster development of intangible capital. This effect is robust to alternative measures of intangible capital and ICT intensity indicators, and even if other region-level determinants of sector growth such as human capital, non-ICT physical capital and financial market development are taken into consideration. The findings imply that Chinese policy makers should aim for not only more ICT investment but also the development of intangible capital.     

U.S. Multinational Activity Abroad and U.S. Jobs: Substitutes or Complements?

Critics of globalization claim that firms are being driven by the prospects of cheaper labor and lower labor standards to shift employment abroad. Yet the evidence, beyond anecdotes, is slim. This paper reports stylized facts on the activities of U.S. multinationals at home and abroad for the years 1977 to 1999. We focus on firms in manufacturing and services, two sectors that have received extensive media attention for supposedly exporting jobs. Using firm‐level data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in Washington, D.C., we report correlations between U.S. multinational employment at home and abroad. Preliminary evidence based on the operations of these multinationals suggests that the sign of the correlation depends on the crucial distinction between affiliates in high‐income and low‐income countries. For affiliates in high‐income countries there is a positive correlation between jobs at home and abroad, suggesting that foreign employment of U.S. multinationals is complementary to domestic employment. For firms that operate in developing countries, employment has been cut in the United States, and affiliate employment has increased. To account for firm size, substitution across firms and entry and exit, we aggregate our data to the industry level. This exercise reveals that the observed “complementarity” between U.S. and foreign jobs has been driven largely by a contraction across all manufacturing sectors. It also reveals that foreign employment in developing countries has substituted for U.S. employment in several highly visible industries, including computers, electronics, and transportation. The fact that there were U.S. jobs lost to foreign affiliates in key sectors, despite broad complementarity in hiring and firing decisions between U.S. parents and their affiliates, helps explain why economists view the impact of globalization on U.S. jobs as benign despite negative news coverage for declining industries.     

Non‐Standard “Contingent” Employment and Job Satisfaction: A Panel Data Analysis

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low‐quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor‐hire (agency) workers (but not fixed‐term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor‐hire workers.     

The Role of Job Attributes in Understanding the Public-Private Wage Differential

This study uses a unique data set for Great Britain to investigate the impact of differences in job attributes on the public-private wage differential. The study reveals that (1) there are substantial differences in wage structure between the two sectors, particularly finding that the public-sector wage structure is less sensitive to differences in the attributes of jobs, and (2) differences in job attributes play in a major role in accounting for pay differences across sectors.