Browsing by Author "Engelbrecht HA"
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemICT intensity and New Zealand's productivity malaise: Is the glass half empty of half full?(Massey University., 2005) Engelbrecht HA; Xayavong VThis paper contributes to the conflicting international evidence on the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on labour productivity (LP) growth. We examine the link between ICT intensity and New Zealand's LP growth in 29 industries over the period 1988-2003, and over relevant sub-periods. After deriving an ICT intensity index to classify industries into 'more ICT intensive' and 'less ICT intensive', we compare LP growth rates for these two industry categories. We also employ dummy variable regression models to more formally test the relationships between ICT intensity and LP growth. The results prove sensitive to the time period specified. When breaks in the data series are taken into account, there is support for the view that LP growth of more ICT intensive industries has improved over time relative to that of other industries, even though overall LP growth was weak. Lack of LP growth per se, therefore, is not necessarily evidence against the beneficial productivity impacts of ICT.
- ItemICT research, the new economy, and the evolving discipline of economics: Back to the future?(Massey University., 2005) Engelbrecht HAEconomics-related ICT research has moved from the fringes of the discipline to penetrate all of its branches. It is, therefore, not a separate economics subdiscipline. It is also unlikely to become part of an "ICT or Internet research" proto-discipline. Instead, it should be seen as only one part of a bigger agenda toward a proper "information and knowledge economics" and possibly a future proto-discipline of a "unified theory of information and knowledge" or a meta-discipline of information sciences. Copyright © Taylor & Francis Inc.
- ItemInternet-based 'social sharing' as a new form of global production: The case of SETI@home(Elsevier, 2008) Engelbrecht HABenkler (Sharing nicely: on shareable goods and the emergence of sharing as a modality of economic production, Yale Law Journal, 2004, vol. 114, pp. 273-358) has argued that 'social sharing' via Internet-based distributed computing is a new, so far under-appreciated modality of economic production. This paper presents results from an empirical study of SETI@home (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which is the classic example of such a computing project. The aim is to explain SETI@home participation and its intensity in a cross-country setting. The data are for a sample of 172 developed and developing countries for the years 2002-2004. The results indicate that SETI@home participation and its intensity can be explained largely by the degree of ICT access (proxied by the International Telecommunication Union's 'Digital Access Index'), as well as GDP per capita and dummy variables for major country groups. Some other variables, such as the Human Development Index, perform less well. Although SETI@home is a global phenomenon, it is never-the-less mostly concentrated in rich countries. However, there are indications of a slowly narrowing global SETI@home digital divide. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
- ItemThe elusive contribution of ICT to productivity growth in New Zealand: Evidence from an extended industry-level growth accounting model(Routledge, 2007) Engelbrecht HA; Xayavong VThis paper explores the impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on economic growth in New Zealand. Using an extended industry-level growth accounting model to analyse the proximate sources of growth in per capita output, we focus on differences in total factor productivity (TFP) growth and its sub-components, as well as other major components of labour productivity (LP) growth, that emerge between ‘more ICT intensive’ and ‘less ICT intensive’ industries. Employing, alternatively, gross output and net output data, we find great differences and distinct patterns in the growth contributions of the two types of industries. However, the quest to find evidence of positive ICT impacts is still somewhat elusive. Although TFP growth of more ICT intensive industries has steadily increased in importance over time, ‘pure’ or within-industry productivity effects are smaller than structural change effect, and LP growth has only accelerated in recent years. © 2007 Taylor & Francis.