Diffusion des TIC et croissance potentielle

The development and spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs) fuelled by the very rapid and steady improvement in their performance, lead to a sustained increase in productivity gains. These productivity gains are likely to increase the potential output growth, in the medium to long-term, via capital deepening effects and total factor productivity (TFP) gains, and, in the short to medium-term, via the lagged adjustment of wages to productivity. However, the empirical assessment of these two types of impacts, on potential output growth, as compared with an extreme and hypothetical situation in which there would be no development of ICT, remains obviously very tentative. Nevertheless, the orders of magnitude of the medium to long-term impacts that we find are very significant: the annual potential output growth could be boosted by roughly two percentage points in the United States and one point in France. But we cannot ascertain any empirical evidence to support the existence of significant short to medium-term effects.