MORE REFERENCES ON ICTS, ECONOMIC GROWTH, ETC.

The Assessment of the New Economy
“The remarkable economic success of the United States in the 1990s led many observers to talk about a "New Economy". This paper provides an overview of the main issues, including faster productivity growth, the stability of inflation despite very low unemployment, the reduction in output volatility, the role of monetary policy, and the boom in the stock market. The paper also considers whether or not the acceleration in productivity growth can be sustained, and the possible implications for the rest of the world.” By Jonathan Temple, “Oxford Review of Economic Policy,” Autumn 2002, 18(3), 241-264
http://www.ecn.bris.ac.uk/www/ecjrwt/abstracts/jtnewecon.pdf

Cross-Country Technology Diffusion: The Case of Computers
Abstract: “We use data on imports of computer equipment for a large sample of countries between 1970 and 1990 to investigate the determinants of computer-technology adoption. We find strong evidence that computer adoption is associated with higher levels of human capital and with manufacturing trade openness vis-a-vis the OECD. We also find evidence that computer adoption is enhanced by high investment rates, good property rights protection, and a small share of agriculture in GDP. Finally, there is some evidence that adoption is reduced by a large share of government in GDP, and increased by a large share of manufacturing. After controlling for the above-mentioned variables, we do not find an independent role for the English- (or European-) language skills of the population.” By Francesco Caselli and Wilbur John Coleman II, January 2001.
http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/caselli/papers/cctd.pdf

Geography and International Inequalities: the impact of new technologies.
Abstract: “Some writers have predicted that new technologies mean the 'death of distance', allowing suitably skilled economies to converge with high income countries. This paper evaluates this claim. It argues that geography matters for international income inequalities, and that new technologies will change, but not abolish, this dependence. Some activities may become more entrenched in high income countries than they are at present. Others - where information can be readily codified and digitized - will relocate, but typically only to a subset of lower income countries. These countries will benefit, but other countries will continue to experience the costs of remoteness.” by Anthony Venables, April 2001. (PDF, 35 pages)
http://econ.worldbank.org/files/1730_Venables-Paper.pdf

An Assessment of Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries
From the Abstract: “The authors find that both privatization and competition lead to significant improvements in performance. But a comprehensive reform program, involving both policies and the support of an independent regulator, produced the largest gains—an 8 percent higher level of mainlines and a 21 percent higher level of productivity compared to years of partial and no reform. Interestingly, the sequence of reform matters: mainline penetration is lower if competition is introduced after privatization, rather than at the same time. The authors also find that autonomous factors, such as technological progress, have a strong influence on telecommunications performance, accounting for an increase of 5 percent a year in teledensity and 9 percent in productivity over the period 1985 to 1999.” By Randeep Rathindran, Carsten Fink, and Aaditya Mattoo, October, 2002. (PDF, 127KB)
http://econ.worldbank.org/view.php?topic=14&type=5&id=20745

World Bank Research: Infrastructure Working Papers
The following papers, in addition to the one above, can be found at this site: “Telecommunications Reform in Côte d’Ivoire,” Jean-Jacques Laffont, and Tchétché N’Guessan; “Telecommunications Sector Reforms in Senegal,” Magueye Dia, Tchétché N’Guessan, and Jean-Paul Azam; “Telecommunications Reform in Uganda,” F. F. Tusubira, Frew Gebreab, Luke Haggarty, and Mary M. Shirley; “Does Sequencing Matter? Regulation and Privatization in Telecommunications Reforms,” Scott Wallsten; “Telecommunication Reforms, Access Regulation, and Internet Adoption in Latin America,” by Marco Manacorda, Tommaso M. Valletti, and Antonio Estache; and “Liberalizing Basic Telecommunications: The Asian Experience,” Randeep Rathindran, Carsten Fink, and Aaditya Mattoo.
http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?topic=14&type=5

Bridging the Digital Divide: How Enterprise Ownership and Foreign Competition Affect Internet Access in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
From the abstract: “Foreign-owned enterprises are more likely to have Internet access than other enterprises and….employee-owned enterprises are less likely to have access. Even after controlling for other factors that might affect Internet connectivity, the quality of a country’s telecommunications infrastructure appears to have a significant effect on the likelihood that an enterprise in that country has Internet access.” By George R. G. Clarke, July 1, 1999. (PDF, 19.29 MB)
http://econ.worldbank.org/view.php?topic=14&type=5&id=2239

Policy Reform, Economic Growth, and the Digital Divide:An Econometric Analysis
From the Abstract: “Using a new cross-country data set, Dasgupta, Lall, and Wheeler investigate two proximate determinants of the digital divide: Internet intensity (Internet subscriptions per telephone mainline) and access to telecom services. Surprisingly, they find no gap in Internet intensity. When differences in urbanization and competition policy are controlled for, low-income countries have intensities as high as those of industrial countries. While income does not seem to matter in this context, competition policy matters a great deal. Low-income countries with high World Bank ratings for competition policy have significantly higher Internet intensities……. Their results show that income explains part of the diffusion lag for poor countries, but they also highlight the critical role of policy. Developing countries whose policies promote economic growth and private sector competition have experienced much more rapid diffusion of mobile telephone services.” By Susmita Dasgupta, Somik V. Lall, and David Wheeler, March 28, 2001. (PDF, 83 KB)
http://econ.worldbank.org/view.php?topic=14&type=5&id=1615

Speculative Microeconomics for Tomorrow's Economy
This is an interesting discussion ranging from economic principles to the effect of new information and communication technologies on markets, and markets for those technologyies. By J. Bradford DeLong and A. Michael Froomkin; November 14, 1999. The HTML document is an extension of a First Monday paper, and includes comments from readers.
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/OpEd/virtual/technet/spmicro.html


Increasingly Weightless Economies
Abstract: "In this article Danny T Quah examines how, when an economy grows, its patterns of production and consumption systematically change. He describes one such large-scale evolution, namely, the increasing weightlessness of aggregate output across advanced economies. In all fast-growing successful countries, growth in information technology has contributed positively both to increasing weightlessness and to
economic growth. In the sample of countries studied here, the richer the country the higher the contribution to growth of information technology and services; in no country has manufacturing, as traditionally construed, continued to be as important." Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin: February 1997.
http://econ.lse.ac.uk/~dquah/p/9702iwe.pdf

A Patent Policy Proposal for Global Diseases
Abstract: "There are two identifiable types of diseases in developing countries. Some, such as malaria, are specific to poor countries, but many others, such as cancer, have a high incidence in all countries. These differences give rise to quite distinct drug markets. In particular, for global diseases, pharmaceutical industry profits derived from having a monopoly over sales in poor countries make only a marginal contribution to total world-wide profit and therefore the incentives to invest in research.. At the same time, even a small price increase due to such a monopoly in a poor country can greatly reduce the number of people able to purchase patented drugs and the welfare of those who do. This paper describes a policy that could improve on the current patent regime by acknowledging these differences in markets and what they imply for optimal patent protection. It allows protection to strengthen for diseases specific to developing countries where a clear argument can be made that some form of new incentives are warranted. At the same time, it effectively keeps protection at its current level in situations where increased profits are less likely to generate new innovation." By Jean O. Lanjouw, April 30, 2001. (PDF, 107 KB)
http://econ.worldbank.org/prr/globalization/library/doc?id=2884