تاثیر اقتصادی انتشار ارتباطات از راه دور بر رشد بهره وری انگلستان

This paper investigates the relationship between telecommunications infrastructure competition, investment and productivity. Using a novel methodology comprising of econometric modelling and input–output economics, the extent to which telecommunications has contributed to national and sectoral productivity performance is examined. The main findings from this paper suggest that most industries have benefited from the incorporation of advances of telecommunications technology, which might have, amongst other things, emanated from encouraging infrastructure investment, in their production processes.

Economists have long observed concomitant trends in growth rates of publicly owned infrastructure investment and productivity and these growth rates and measures of international competitiveness e.g. Aschauer, 1989, De Long and Summers, 1991 and De Long and Summers, 1993. Furthermore, studies – see Jipp, 1963, Hardy, 1980, Cronin et al., 1991 and Cronin et al., 1993a – have found that highly developed national economies are correlated with highly developed telecommunications infrastructure. However, no study in the UK has examined and measured the extent to which telecommunications and its diffusion have contributed to productivity performance at economy-wide and sectoral levels. Employing an innovative analytical approach suggests that, from a historical basis, most industries have benefited from the incorporation of advances in telecommunications technology, which might have, amongst other things, emanated from encouraging infrastructure investment, in their production processes. The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 provides a brief outline of the previous literature in this area. Section 3 describes the methodology undertaken in this study for measuring the impact of telecommunications infrastructure investment on national and sectoral productivity. Section 4 discusses the data used in the analysis. Section 5 provides an estimate of the relative impact of telecommunications infrastructure investment on national and sectoral productivity. Finally in Section 6, we conclude with a summary of the results and their public policy implications.

The research presented in this paper has attempted to establish a link between telecommunications infrastructure investment and economic growth and to assess the specific impacts on the productivity of the economy and 12 industrial sectors. Using improved techniques comprising input–output economics and economic modelling, the results suggest that telecommunications productivity, over a 34 year period, has outpaced the economy-wide productivity level. Furthermore, we found that telecommunications was a strong contributor to the performance of the economic system as a whole. This coupled with the telecommunications productivity rate figures suggests that not only has telecommunications contributed its share of total output more efficiently, but it has also contributed to overall economy-wide productivity growth via its influence on other industries. Additionally, evidence of the interdependence of telecommunications and other sectors is provided in the research. Indeed the analysis conducted in this paper shows that all industries have benefited from the incorporation of advances in telecommunications technology, which might have, amongst other things, emanated from the policy of encouraging infrastructure investment, in their production processes. It is possible therefore that by pursuing a policy of dynamic competition, – encouraging infrastructure competition – organisational performance and productivity within the telecommunications industry has been improved which via the industry’s impact on other markets has facilitated the economic development and growth of these other sectors.