Information Technology is a key factor in any company’s competitiveness. Cooperatives are no exception, especially when technologies such as the Internet are so useful for promoting their participative philosophy. Furthermore, IT aids the coordination and control of the group’s activities,...

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...

We examine the relationships between productivity growth, IT investment and organisational change (∆O) using UK firm data. Consistent with the small number of other micro studies we find (a) IT appears to have high returns in a growth accounting sense when ∆O is omitted; when ∆O is included...

This paper presents a growth model where the technological externality (learning-by-doing) generated by ICT is the key mechanism for development. If hi-tech assets are able to engender increasing returns, as being knowledge (or R&D) based or because creating network externalities, then the...

The San Francisco Bay Area has long been a key center of information technology (IT) innovation and production. This Economic Letter explores how IT employment trends have evolved in this area, as well as how they compare to other key IT centers and the nation. The findings show that, although...

This Economic Letter introduces the new Tech Pulse Index, a measure that tracks economic activity in the U.S. information technology (IT) sector. The index first appeared under the sponsorship of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; due to substantial revisions of the econometric model and...

For the last fifteen years or so, information technology (IT) has become an ever more important part of the U.S. economy. Looking back over the period, there can be little doubt that the growing use of IT contributed significantly to the economy's performance, especially in the latter half of...

The growth rate of business investment in information technology boomed in the 1990s and 2000 before plunging in 2001. This boom and bust raises some natural questions: what were the reasons for the accentuated swings in growth rates, and, more importantly, what do those reasons portend for the...