Evaluating latecomer growth in information technology: A historical perspective

From a low initial base it is not difficult for developing countries to close the relative digital divide with the developed countries. A more challenging and novel question is whether, because of leapfrogging and other latecomer advantages, developing countries have grown faster than developed from the same initial starting point. Or, is it the case rather that the disadvantages of being a latecomer exceed the advantages? Are there any pronounced outliers among the developing countries and what are their distinguishing characteristics? Using a number of methods and data sources I seek to answer these questions in a tentative but provocative manner.     

Assessing the broadband gap: From the penetration divide to the quality divide

Only some years ago the analysis of broadband diffusion was focused on who had an Internet connection and who did not. Now, the relevant questions are: how good is it? How fast? And, how fast is fast? Thus, the broadband gap can no longer be seen as a penetration divide. It is becoming more and more a quality and capacity divide, and therefore, a divide in the range of services people can access and use. By means of the Broadband Quality Score—an index that combines three key performance parameters for the quality of a connection (upload and download speeds, and latency)—Japan is found to be the only country of the 42 countries studied currently prepared to deliver the quality required for next-generation web applications over the next 3 to 5 years.     

The digital economy: Where do we stand?

The rapid transition towards a “digital economy” was enabled by a converging set of innovations. Computing saw the development of the semiconductor transistor, integrated circuit, personal computers (PCs), operating systems, and graphical interfaces. The physical layer of telecommunication was enabled via the emergence of optical fiber and new wireless communication technologies, while networking saw the development of the Internet (essentially packet switching) and the World Wide Web. These advances combined to realize a series of new applications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as business software, e-mail, and e-commerce. However, progress seriously stumbled with the collapse of the dot com bubble, which among other things revealed a huge amount of misdirected investment that could have been used more productively. The question of the day is thus how to realize new “killer apps” to stimulate a new round of growth. The use of cell phones for communicating text, pictures, and video is a rapidly expanding area, but it seems unlikely that these applications will have a macroeconomic impact. Entertainment is a key industry whose fortunes are entwined with ICTs. Indeed, the application of ICT to innovating entertainment products is an important driver for the continued growth of the industry. Distribution of music and video via the Web could significantly stimulate demand but also raises the thorny question of how to protect intellectual property rights (IPR) of content providers. Another possible killer apps are interactive video-on-demand and telecalls/teleconferencing. The latter would, among other things, stimulate adoption of telework. The current Internet is capable of handing neither one-way transmissions of high-quality video nor interactive video-on-demand. There are bottlenecks both for the “last mile” connection from Internet service provider (ISP) to the home but also the “first miles” from originating server to ISP. The effective first miles bandwidth has not increased along with improvements in equipment, essentially because demand increases with capacity and thus traffic jams on the net continue. Digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies over telephone wires, and possibly wireless networks, will play important roles in getting over the last mile hurdle. Upgrading the first miles will probably require new networking protocols beyond TCP/IP that support multimedia and also changes in the economic model of information transfer via the Net.     

Viewpoint: From cities to productivity and growth in developing countries

Abstract.  This paper reviews the evidence about the effects of urbanization and cities on productivity and economic growth in developing countries using a consistent theoretical framework. As in developed economies, there is strong evidence that cities in developing countries bolster productive efficiency. Regarding whether cities promote self-sustained growth, the evidence is suggestive but ultimately inconclusive. These findings imply that the traditional agenda of aiming to raise within-city efficiency should be continued. Furthermore, reducing the obstacles to the reallocation of factors across cities is also desirable.     

Rethinking leapfrogging in the end-user telecom market

It is widely observed that people in developing countries have been able to skip landline-based telecommunication systems by directly adopting mobile phones and enjoying their convenience. Such an observation is usually labeled as leapfrogging. Popularized by various anecdotes in the media, it is also believed that less-developed countries have gone through such telecom leapfrogging earlier and therefore benefit more than other countries. However, such beliefs surrounding this leapfrogging have never been systematically investigated. Clarifying entangled arguments and proposing to measure telecom leapfrogging from four dimensions, this study is a sanity check on these beliefs. Empirically analyzing longitudinal data from 159 countries by measuring the four dimensions, this study finds that reality is not as rosy as many people believe.     

信息系统使用行为和绩效之间的关系研究

针对目前我国信息系统在企业应用水平低下的现状,本文通过文献梳理对于信息系统用户的使用行为以及个人绩效的相关研究进行了回顾与总结,从个体层面阐述了国外信息系统采纳后行为研究在理论发展及实证研究的现状,总结国内外的相关研究,将信息系统使用行为分为使用频率、使用路径及使用融合三种,同时对三种使用行为与绩效之间的关系进行了分析,其中使用路径和使用融合对个人绩效有显著影响,使用频率对使用路径有显著影响,使用路径对使用融合有显著影响,并采用云南省烟草公司的案例中的实证数据分析进行了验证。最后,总结了研究结果的实践意义及未来研究发展的方向,期望可以为国内现代企业提升员工信息系统使用水平及个人工作绩效提供参考。     

The determinants of EST adoption by manufacturing plants in developing countries

This article reports on the findings of a survey undertaken in late 2001-early 2002 on the determinants of environmentally sound technology (EST) adoption by 98 plants in eight developing countries. We review the literature on technology diffusion and technology capabilities as well as empirical studies with an exclusive focus on developing countries that explicitly addressed environmental performance or EST adoption to formulate our heuristic model that guided our investigation. We examine in some detail the determinants of both prevention and abatement technologies, which has seldom been investigated, in developing countries.In full recognition of literature that cites a host of reasons that cause plants to adopt EST we take into account both contextual and plant-specific factors. We use an ordered choice model that revealed that plant-specific factors assume a pre-dominant role in explaining the adoption of higher order of complexity EST. Plant-specific factors, specifically environmental commitment, technological capabilities, and ownership, and market factors, specifically foreign involvement and water and energy price perception, matter in determining the type of technological response and thus in explaining the adoption of higher-order complexity EST. Two governmental factors, regulatory implementation strategy and international donor assistance, also play a role in the adoption of EST. However, civil society, in particular community pressure that has been identified as an important determinant of environmental performance, does not play a role because of the way the dependent variable is constructed to capture higher orders of technological complexity.     

Piracy of digital products: A critical review of the theoretical literature

Digital products can be copied at almost no cost and are subject to non-commercial copying by final consumers. Because the copy of a copy typically does not deteriorate in quality, copies can become available on a large scale basis – this can be illustrated by the surge of file-sharing networks. In this paper we provide a critical overview of the theoretical literature that addresses the economic consequences of end-user copying. We analyze basic models of piracy, models with indirect appropriation, models with network effects, and models with asymmetric information. We discuss the applicability of the different modeling strategies to a number of industries such as software, video and computer games, music, and movies.     

Testing for PPP in developing countries using confirmatory analysis and different base countries: an application to Asian countries

Previous studies on PPP have tested either the null hypothesis of non-stationary or the null of a stationary real exchange rate and used the US as the base country and focused on industrialized countries. It has been argued that testing either null is insufficient to confirm the presence of PPP. It has also been noticed that the results are sensitive to the choices of the base country; for instance, the US versus Germany. In contrast to previous studies, this paper uses different unit root tests, confirmatory analysis, and different base countries to test PPP for a sample of developing countries in Asia during the current float. Overall, the results do not seem to be sensitive to the choice of the base country, and joint rejections are not present but joint non-rejections are far more common. Using Perron's test, which allows for a one-time break in the series, the results indicate evidence of stationarity for Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand when the US is the base country. When Japan is the base country, evidence of stationarity is detected only for Indonesia.     

Foresight tools for participative policy-making in inter-governmental processes in developing countries: Lessons learned from the eLAC Policy Priorities Delphi

The paper shows how international foresight exercises, through online and offline tools, can make policy-making in developing countries more participatory, fostering transparency and accountability of public decision-making. A five-round Delphi exercise (with 1454 contributions), based on the priorities of the 2005-2007 Latin American and Caribbean Action Plan for the Information Society (eLAC2007), was implemented. This exercise aimed at identifying future priorities that offered input into the inter-governmental negotiation of a 2008-2010 Action Plan (eLAC2010). It is believed to be the most extensive online participatory policy-making foresight exercise in the history of intergovernmental processes in the developing world to date. In addition to the specific policy guidance provided, the major lessons learned include (1) the potential of Policy Delphi methods to introduce transparency and accountability into public decision-making, especially in developing countries; (2) the utility of foresight exercises to foster multi-agency networking in the development community; (3) the usefulness of embedding foresight exercises into established mechanisms of representative democracy and international multilateralism, such as the United Nations; (4) the potential of online tools to facilitate participation in resource-scarce developing countries; and (5) the resource-efficiency stemming from the scale of international foresight exercises, and therefore its adequacy for resource-scarce regions. Two different types of practical implications have been observed. One is the governments' acknowledgement of the value of collective intelligence from civil society, academic and private sector participants of the Delphi and the ensuing appreciation of participative policy-making. The other is the demonstration of the role that can be played by the United Nations (and potentially by other inter-governmental agencies) in international participatory policy-making in the digital age, especially if they modernize the way they assist member countries in developing public policy agendas.     

Foreign bank participation and access to credit across firms in developing countries

Combining responses from a survey of firms operating in 35 developing and transition economies with data on the degree of foreign bank presence across these countries, we investigate whether higher foreign bank participation improves the accessibility of external financing for firms. The results suggest that all enterprises, including small and medium-sized ones, report facing lower financing obstacles in countries having higher levels of foreign bank presence. The results are robust to the inclusion of many controls and to econometric adjustments for the potential endogeneity of foreign bank presence and for the likely correlation of responses across firms within countries. Journal of Comparative Economics 34 (4) (2006) 774–795.     

大学生手机消费影响因素的研究

大学生的手机消费问题，一直以来就是我们关心的一个重要问题，作为未来的消费主力，大学生目前的花费消费状况，将会极大地影响到商家和大学生本人。在历史上，有不少专家对相关的问题进行了深入的研究。本文首先总结相关领域内学者的观点，然后利用调查问卷统计出的数据，应用SPSS8．0软件进行相关分析和回归分析，研究影响大学生手机话费结构的因素及各个因素的显著性水平。     

Military spending and the black market premium in developing countries

Researchers who have been concerned with the economic implications of military spending have mostly concentrated on its impact on economic growth, corruption, real exchange rate and inflation. In this paper we investigate the impact of military spending on black market premium, an area that has not been tackled so far. After adding a measure of military spending to a well established model of black market premium form the literature, we estimate the model by pooling annual data over the 1985 – 1998 period across 61 developing countries. Results from five panel specifications provide considerable evidence that higher military spending leads to higher black market premium.     

基于TOE框架的企业采纳RFID决定性因素研究

RFID即无线射频识别技术,是一种发展迅速的物联网技术。近年来,不少企业开始尝试采纳RFID以提高绩效和竞争优势。为了解释企业采纳RFID的决定性因素,研究者借助TOE框架开展了较多的实证研究,从技术背景、组织特征和外部环境的三大维度分析了影响企业采纳RFID的决定性因素。文献分析发现,技术复杂性、技术兼容性、成本、标准不统一、组织准备、高管支持、IT能力、环境不确定性、交易伙伴命令、竞争压力、政府支持和变革推动者是企业采纳RFID的主要决定性因素。研究结论既为RFID应用的相关者提供了管理启示,也指引了未来的研究方向。     

发展中国家和地区外资并购情况及其启示

近二十年来,跨国并购与直接投资同步迅速发展,跨国并购在国际直接投资流量中所占的比重不断提高,2000年世界跨国并购总额已达世界直接投资总额的9成以上。特别是在发达国家之间,直接投资主要是以跨国并购的方式实现的。在发展中国家,情况有所不同。90年代中期以来,发展中国家的跨国并购也一直在迅速增长,但所占比重仍低于新建投资。2000年以跨国并购方式进入发展中国家的投资额仅为直接投资总额的3成。总体上看,发展中国家跨国并购与直接投资流量的比率呈上升趋势。1995年跨国并购额占直接投资流入量的14%,1996年为23%,1997年为35%,1998年达…     

发达国家和地区培育太阳能光伏市场的政策和启示

世界太阳能光伏产业在过去10年中年均增速超过40％,已成为当今世界增长最快的行业之一。本文对发达国家和地区太阳能光伏产业的发展现状和相关市场培育的政策进行了归纳总结,并从中得出对我国培育太阳能光伏市场的几点重要启示。     

Technology transfer in the IT industry: A Korean perspective

Recently Korean Government announced ambitious IT strategy to establish Korea as one of leaders in world IT market. To implement this strategy, technology transfer from research lab to market should be successfully performed. This study is to identify factors influencing technology transfer and to examine contribution of these factors on success of technology transfer in Korean IT industry. Survey results show that technology project leaders evaluated “Concreteness of Technology” as the most influential factor for technology transfer, followed by “Communication Channels,” “Collaboration among Participants,” “Management Support,” “Government Support,” and “Incentives for Transfer.” Out of 135 technology transfer projects, respondents rated 33 projects as sustaining (28.44%), 38 as promoting (28.15%), 26 as demonstrating (19.26%), 27 in incubating (20.00%), and the remaining 7 in imaging stage (8.15%). This statistics means that 28.15% of technology transfer projects did not reach production stage. Regression analysis identifies that “Communication Channels,” “Management Support,” “Concreteness of Technology” “Sense of Common Purpose,” and “Awareness of Technology Transfer” were statistically significant in explaining success of technology transfer.     

The role of WiBro: Filling the gaps in mobile broadband technologies

This paper analyzes WiBro, one of the emerging wireless technologies for portable Internet services (PIS), which are designed to enable mobile broadband access. Based on an empirical examination of consumer preferences for mobile broadband technologies and an estimation of the future demand for WiBro, this study proposes that WiBro should fill the gaps between competing mobile broadband technologies, such as 3G and WLAN.     

The transmission of world commodity prices to domestic markets under policy reforms in developing countries

This paper examines the degree to which world price signals have been transmitted into domestic prices for eight countries and ten commodities, a total of 31 country/commodity pairs. The main characteristic of these countries was that they all undertook substantial policy reforms during the mid‐1980s to early 1990s. The paper investigates the effect of reforms on the speed at which signals were transmitted to domestic markets and on the extent of price transmission. We find that Chile, Mexico, and Argentina are the only countries whose domestic commodity markets were integrated with world markets. For the remaining cases (Ghana, Madagascar, Indonesia, Egypt, and Colombia) in only a few country/commodity pairs is there some passthrough of world price changes. In terms of the effects of policy reforms, in the majority of the cases the hypothesis of a structural break following the reform year is rejected.