In-house information activities in an applied general equilibrium framework

Increasingly, firms' activities consist of information generating and processing activities, and information costs tend to dominate production costs. This indicates the necessity for explicitly incorporating private bureaucracies in economic modelling, if we want to understand economic development. Porat and Rubin's concept of the ‘secondary information sector’, which accounts for non-marketed information services produced in-house, is an attempt to account for and analyse intra-firm information activities at an industry and economy-wide level. The present study extends their work by embedding the sector in a simple computable general equilibrium model, using Japan in 1980 as an illustrative case study. Scenarios modelling changes in sectoral exports and domestic demand are conducted. Advantages and disadvantages of the secondary information sector concept are highlighted and areas for further research are indicated.     

Information resources and economic productivity

This paper analyzes the role of information resources in the development of the United States economy and especially in the determination of productivity levels. The analysis is based on a formal economic model of the interrelationship between two sectors: an information sector, comprising all labor and capital used to process and handle information, and a production sector, which processes and handles material goods. The purposes of the model are to explain the past growth of the information sector workforce, to identify productivity trends in the sector, and to determine the implications of those trends for future economic performance. The analysis shows that, historically, the rate of efficiency improvement in information handling (essentially white-collar) work has been much slower than in production work. However this pattern is changing rapidly, chiefly as a result of the introduction of new data processing, communication and storage technologies. Our model shows that the expected future level of investment in these information technologies will be sufficient to reverse, by the mid 1980s, the slowdown of economic growth which is currently afflicting industrialized countries.     

我国通信部门对经济增长的外溢效应——基于面板数据和动态Feder模型

首先梳理了通信部门对经济增长的外溢性影响的特点,然后选取动态Feder模型,运用1995—2008年我国省级面板数据,对我国通信部门与经济增长之间的关系进行定量分析。结果表明:整体而言,我国通信部门对经济增长具有显著的促进作用,表现为通信部门自身促进经济增长的直接效应,以及通信部门通过技术、信息等多渠道产生的较强的外溢效应;从区域层面看,东、中部地区通信部门的外溢效应显著大于西部地区。     

Informed trade,uninformed trade and stock price delay

The probability of informed trading (PIN), a measure of information-based trading risk, has been broadly applied to empirical studies on asset pricing. However, it is still controversial whether PIN measures exclusively the risk of firm-specific private information or it also captures the private interpretation of market wide public information. This article examines the relevance of PIN to the delayed response of stock prices to market-wide information. We find that PIN significantly explains individual stock price delay even controlling for size, liquidity and risk, and low-PIN stock prices adjust to market information more rapidly not only because of a notably high level of informed trading but also an even much higher level of uninformed trading. Our findings support the notion that PIN also captures the private skilled interpretation of public common factor information by sophisticated investors, and provide new empirical evidence on how information-based trading affects the speed at which stock prices adjust to information.     

Environmental resilience and economic growth: Command economy's optimization and environmental Kuznets curve

This paper constructs a two-sector environmental growth model with explicit mathematical derivation and economic intuition in a social planning economy. Through the optimal allocation of man-made capital between the production sector and the environmental sector, this paper shows that the trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection exists only when an economy deviates from its steady state. We also provide short-run transitions for both the whole economic system and individual control and state variables. In addition, technological progress in the production sector benefits economic growth rate while the improvement of technology in the environmental sector has only level effects on economic variables. This paper ends with a link between the theory and a hot empirical issue — the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis.     

论金融信息化对金融业的影响

在信息技术成果的广泛应用不断推动国民经济信息化进程的背景下，金融领域的信息化进程深刻地改变着金融活动与管理的内容、范围和方式。本旨在探讨金融信息化对金融业已经可能产生的广泛而深刻的影响。     

The Japanese information economy: Its quantification and analysis in a macroeconomic framework (with comparisons to the U.S.)

Japan is one of the leading information societies and there is official policy promotion of its information economy image. In this study the information sector of Japan is measured and analysed within a macroeconomic framework, using input-output techniques. Important benchmark statistics on both the primary and secondary information sectors are derived and compared to those obtained in an earlier study of the U.S. The analysis reveals the high growth potential of both information sectors in the two economies. However, important inter-country differences also emerge, in particular in regard to the amount of resources devoted to the information task at the disaggregated sector level. This leads to a discussion of the relationship between investment in the information sector, organisational design, informational efficiency and productivity growth, which is seen to be of crucial importance for the future success or failure of the two economies. Limitations of the approach adopted in this study and areas for further research are indicated.     

Computerization,workplace organization,skilled labour and firm productivity: Evidence for the Swiss business sector

The present study explores empirically the hypothesis that information and communication technologies, new organizational practices and human capital are important determinants of firm efficiency and performance, further that the combined use of these three factors leads to a mutual strengthening of their impact on firm performance. The analytical framework is that of a production function at firm level. The new contribution of this study to the empirical literature is that it is the first empirical study of this type for the Swiss business sector, using a rich data set at firm level for the year 1999 which were collected by means of a postal survey, and giving particular attention to the complementarity issue (several approaches) and to the endogenization of the technology and organization variables.     

Women and the social economy in transitional Russia

The present article analyses the role of the social economy in transitional Russia and its consequences for women. The changes in the economic system in the former Soviet Union and its effects is often analysed in general terms. One interesting aspect is whether the changes have similar effects on men and women. The aim here is to highlight how women's situation changes when the economic system changes and how Russian women adapt to these changes. Three types of activities which are carried out by women within the social economy are discussed below, where each of these activities are built on strategies for survival from the Soviet period: distribution of vital goods in rural areas, distribution of information to women and production of services. Although the social economy has a considerable gap to fill in Russia, this has not yet implied that the cooperative sector flourishes. Instead there is a danger that women go from paid work in the state sector to non-paid work within the voluntary sector.     

Appropriate technology assessment: A note on policy considerations

This paper summarizes various positions on appropriate technology and its relation to technological dependence, and certain contradictions within the concept are pointed out. An alternative approach to policy questions in appropriate technology assessment and independence is then proposed using a framework involving three economic sectors—the consumer goods sector, capital goods sector, and technological change sector.     

ICT效应下外商直接投资、经济增长与能源消耗 ---基于半参数空间向量自回归模型的研究

基于中国30个省份面板数据,通过构建半参数空间向量自回归模型（SSPVAR）,利用时空脉冲响应函数、偏导图探讨了经济增长、能源消耗及外商直接投资的时空传导效应与信息与通讯技术（ICT）非线性的影响作用。研究结果显示：外商直接投资、经济增长及能耗强度受到彼此冲击后的响应较为明显;能耗强度具有自强化效应,空间溢出作用促进了周边省份经济发展,短期内不利于其外资引入,但长期却能提高外资利用。经济发展产生不可持续的自身累积效应,与单位产值能耗走在了“U”的上行区,但却对邻近区域产生了积极的正向溢出。外资长期利好效应凸显,发挥经济发展和能源节约的促进作用;短期内却抑制经济发展,强化能耗度,更无法发挥“示范”效应吸引更大规模的外资流入。ICT具有正向的节能、增产和引流效应,分别以倒V和V型形态推进,但是发展的初级阶段却没有任何影响作用。加速ICT应用,智能化和信息化商业、生产模式转型将有助于更少能耗的经济高质量发展。     

A Vision for Australia: Indicators from Singapore

This article suggests that Australia could benefit from observing more closely Singapore's current development strategy. The production of labour intensive manufactures primarily by foreign firms and for export formed the core of Singapore's successful economic advance in the 1960s and 1970s. While a factor endowment strength—comparatively cheap labour—lay behind this achievement, the Singapore government actively supplemented this strength by creating a business environment highly favourable to the needs of foreign investors.
With full employment and rising wage levels since then, Singapore lost its comparative advantage in the production of low wage manufactures to other East Asian countries. Recently, its development has been based more on created than inherited advantages. The Singapore government argues that the resources crucial to sustained per capita income advance in middle and higher income countries are not natural resources but rather information, technology, investible funds, research and development (R&D) spending and professional people. Singapore aims to develop its business environment to attract such resources to Singapore.
The government's vision for Singapore is a nation where the share of professional and highly skilled manpower in the workforce rises over time. This employment goal informs the government's approach to all policy matters: infrastructure development, education, urban development, microeconomic reform, taxation, fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy, support for manufacturing and service activities, and attitudes to foreign investors.
By comparison with Australia, Singapore has a very level playing field. The government sees no conflict between intervening to attempt to create competitive advantage while vigorously pursuing microeconomic reforms to make the playing field in Singapore still more level.     

信息化对城乡一体化进程的影响及对策

城乡一体化作为我国协调城市和农村两大地域经济和社会系统的重要方式,在未来全球信息化的浪潮中,将会对我国城市化进程产生更加广泛和深刻的影响。文章从城乡地域社会经济、人口流动和居住空间的变化、城乡文化和思想意识的交流以及城乡地域生态系统的可持续发展等角度出发,分析了信息化对我国城乡一体化进程所带来的各方面影响,并就城乡制度政策改革、统一市场体系、基础设施建设、生态环境保护等方面如何利用信息化趋势来促进城乡协调发展提出了相应的对策。     

The Impact Of Information Technology On High-Skilled Labor In Services: Evidence From Firm-Level Panel Data ∗

This paper analyses the link between the high-skilled employment share and the level of investment in information technology (IT) in the service production process. The analysis is based on an unbalanced panel data set for 933 West German firms over the period 1994–1996. To account for firms which do not employ high-skilled labor. proxied by university graduates. fixed and random effects Tobit models are applied. We investigate whether the impoflance of IT varies across subsectors by allowing coefficients to differ across the main service sector industries. The empirical evidence indicates that firms with a higher IT investment to output ratio employ a laier fraction of high-skilled workers. However the size of the IT effect on skill intensity is rather small.     

The determinants of investment in information and communication technologies

In this paper, we assess the determinants of information and communication technology (ICT) investment at the macro-level, for a panel of 10 advanced countries, in the period 1992–2005. We investigate the idea that, since ICTs are general purpose technologies, the decision to invest in these technologies is strongly affected by the general business environment in which the investment takes place. The empirical results are consistent with this idea: facilitating factors such as changes in market regulation, amount of human capital, expenditure on R&D, and the share of the dynamic services sector in the economy, positively influence investment in ICT.     

Private information, money, and growth: Indeterminacy, fluctuations, and the Mundell-Tobin effect

We introduce an informational asymmetry into an otherwise standard monetary growth model and examine its implications for the determinacy of equilibrium, for endogenous economic volatility, and for the relationship between steady-state output and the rate of money growth. Some empirical evidence suggests that, for economies with low initial inflation rates, permanent increases in the money growth rate raise long-run output levels. This relationship is reversed for economies with high initial inflation rates. Our model predicts this pattern. Moreover, in economies with high enough rates of inflation, credit rationing emerges, monetary equilibria become indeterminate, and endogenous economic volatility arises.     

不同经济发展水平下创新要素对产业创新绩效的影响及政策启示

基于不同经济发展水平研究视角,选取新一代信息技术产业为研究对象,采用改进的Griliches-Jaffe知识生产函数模型,运用面板数据回归分析方法,利用《中国高技术产业统计年鉴》（2007-2017年）中电子及通信设备制造业统计数据进行实证研究,探究创新要素投入与创新绩效的关系。结果发现：对于新一代信息技术产业,在不同经济发展水平地区投入相同创新要素对创新绩效的影响存在一定差异,尤其体现在技术投入要素作用效果上。这就意味着,对经济发展水平不同地区使用相同的创新要素推动产业创新发展是低效的;不同发展水平地区有针对性地分配创新要素,对于实现创新要素最大效率、推动战略性新兴产业布局与发展尤其关键。最后,提出相应政策启示及建议。     

PROVISION OF SERVICES IN POLAND: A THEORETICAL AND STATISTICAL STUDY

Problems raised in the article relate to the treatment of services in a planned economy. While the theoretical discussion argues for change in the conceptual framework for qualifying and measuring the output of the service sector, the practice of statistical reporting is still based on the classical concept of the material product system (MPS) of national accounts. The first part of the article gives an outline of the MPS background and presents major theoretical and practical dilemmas of measurement of services in the non-material sphere of production. The second part is an empirical investigation of interrelatedness between production in the material sphere and services created in the non-material sphere in Poland during the period 1970–81. Correlation and elasticity of growth analysis as well as structural forecasting methods were used in order to demonstrate the strong relation between the development of the material and non-material spheres of production, and the favorable position of services in terms of factor productivities with their low potential for dynamic structural changes in the future. For the purpose of empirical analysis, the service sector output was estimated by using an extended version of MPS. There are two major conclusions to be drawn from the analysis. The first is that the classical concept of MPS not only inadequately copes with changes resulting from economic reforms in Poland but produces more and more dilemmas and practical problems. The second conclusion calls for a more active approach to services in development programming and planning.     

Services,innovation and the new economy

Several distinctive stylized facts form the new economy, an information technology service sector organized in network forms of organization, an inflation rate below its fundamentals, an increase in stock market volatility, high rates of economic growth, but apart from a small information technology manufacturing sector low productivity rates. This paper presents a model where the innovation of new service varieties can explain all of these facts. First, productivity gains are no longer realized within but between firms, as the increase in variety increases value-added per employee. Whilst service innovators, such as the information technology manufacturers, get ever more productive, individual service firms will exhibit low productivity. It is this unmeasured sectoral productivity gain, which is the key element in understanding the intrinsic inertia in the price index. Finally, the paper shows that variety in the service sector enables service providers to realize rents, where fluctuations of these rents are the basis of more than proportional changes in the firms' stock market value.     

The role of industrial classification in the micro-macro integration: The case of the banking business in the 1997 North American industrial classification system

Although economic classification is not part of the Ruggles's prodigious contributions to the System of National Accounts, it is certainly meant to help achieve the integration and linking of macrodata with microdata. Unfortunately, economic classification is a component of the statistical infrastructure that often remains unquestioned by the existing industrial organization literature. This paper fills this gap using the banking business under the 1997 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) as an example. More specifically, the paper ascertains the extent to which NAICS succeeds at combining the various activities performed by Canadian banks into homogeneous industries. Assuming that producing units within the same industry should display more similar cost structure than those in less similar industries, we find that NAICS—at least for the banking sector—is successful at identifying and grouping producing units into homogeneous economic activities. This result is particularly helpful for empirical research that relies on microdata to draw inferences on the structures, conduct and economic performance of the banking sector as whole.