Researchers in a large empirical literature find significant relationships between computers and labor productivity, but the estimated size of that relationship varies considerably. In this paper, we estimate the relationships among computers, computer networks, and plant-level productivity in...

More than half a century ago, visionaries representing both the Census Bureau and the external research community laid the foundation for the Center for Economic Studies (CES) and the Research Data Center (RDC) system. They saw a clear need for a system meeting the inextricably related...

How do computers affect productivity? Many recent studies argue that using information technology, particularly computers, is a significant source of U.S. productivity growth. The specific mechanism remains elusive. Detailed data on the use of computers and computer networks have been scarce....

Business use of computers in the United States dates back fifty years. Simply investing in information technology is unlikely to offer a competitive advantage today. Differences in how businesses use that technology should drive differences in economic performance. Our previous research found...

Recent studies argue that the use of information technology is a significant source of U.S. productivity growth. Official U.S. data on this use have been scarce. New official data on the use of electronic business processes (business processes such as procurement, payroll, inventory,...

Innovation has long been credited as a leading source of economic strength and vitality in the United States because it leads to new goods and services and increases productivity, leading to better living standards. Better measures of innovative activities–activities including but not limited...

This paper examines the relationship between computer network use and firms’ productivity performance, using micro-data of the United States and Japan. To our knowledge, this is the first comparative analysis using firm-level data for the manufacturing sector of both countries. We find that...