The roles of electricity and ICT in economic growth: Case Finland

A quantitative look is taken at electricity and ICT as the engines of economic growth in Finland which was one of the leading countries in the electrification of mechanical drive in industry and which today is one of the leading information societies. It is shown that ICT’s contribution to GDP growth in 1990-2004 was three times as large as electricity’s contribution in 1920-1938. The improvement of multi-factor productivity in production accounted for 60% of ICT’s contribution but only one third of electricity’s. Electricity’s growth contribution was smaller but ICT’s larger than in the United States.