The Contribution of Information and Communication Technology to Output Growth : A Study of the G7 Countries

This paper deals with the contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to economic growth and to labour and multi-factor productivity. It uses a well-established growth accounting framework to assess the role of ICTs as capital inputs and the contribution of these capital inputs to output growth. The paper provides an international perspective by presenting results for the G7 countries. For this purpose, data on ICT investment expenditure were compiled from several sources, to construct measures of ICT capital stocks and capital services. Special care was taken to account for the methodological differences in price deflators for computers as they exist across OECD countries. For all seven countries, the report finds that ICT capital goods have been important contributors to economic growth, although the role of ICT has been most accentuated in the United States. An important limitation of the study lies in the timeliness of internationally comparable data. ...