IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/05-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Computer Investment, Computer Networks and Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Sang Nguyen
  • B.K. Atrostic

Abstract

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 U.S. manufacturing. Using new data on computer investment, we develop a sample with the best proxies for computer and total capital that the data allow us to construct. We find that computer networks and computer inputs have separate, positive, and significant relationships with U.S. manufacturing plant-level productivity. Keywords: computer input; information technology; labor productivity

Suggested Citation

  • Sang Nguyen & B.K. Atrostic, 2005. "Computer Investment, Computer Networks and Productivity," Working Papers 05-01, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:05-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2005/CES-WP-05-01.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2005
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Doms, Mark E, 1996. "Estimating Capital Efficiency Schedules within Production Functions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 34(1), pages 78-92, January.
    2. Nathalie Greenana & Jacques Mairesse, 2000. "Computers And Productivity In France: Some Evidence," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 275-315.
    3. Mark Doms & Timothy Dunne & Kenneth R. Troske, 1997. "Workers, Wages, and Technology," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 253-290.
    4. Anitesh Barua & Charles H. Kriebel & Tridas Mukhopadhyay, 1995. "Information Technologies and Business Value: An Analytic and Empirical Investigation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 3-23, March.
    5. Zvi Griliches & Jacques Mairesse, 1995. "Production Functions: The Search for Identification," NBER Working Papers 5067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. John Haltiwanger & Russell Cooper & Laura Power, 1999. "Machine Replacement and the Business Cycle: Lumps and Bumps," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 921-946, September.
    7. Martin Neil Baily, 1986. "Productivity Growth and Materials Use in U. S. Manufacturing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(1), pages 185-195.
    8. Timothy Dunne & John Haltiwanger & Lucia Foster, 2000. "Wage and Productivity Dispersion in U.S. Manufacturing: The Role of Computer Investment," NBER Working Papers 7465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2003. "Computing Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 793-808, November.
    10. Motohashi, Kazuyuki, 2007. "Firm-level analysis of information network use and productivity in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 121-137, March.
    11. Randy A. Becker & John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Shawn D. Klimek & Daniel J. Wilson, 2006. "Micro and Macro Data Integration: The Case of Capital," NBER Chapters, in: A New Architecture for the US National Accounts, pages 541-610, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Robert Mcguckin & Mary Streitwieser & Mark Doms, 1998. "The Effect Of Technology Use On Productivity Growth," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 1-26.
    13. Jacques Mairesse & Nathalie Greenan & Agnes Topiol-Bensaid, 2001. "Information Technology and Research and Development Impacts on Productivity and Skills: Looking for Correlations on French Firm Level Data," NBER Working Papers 8075, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Sabourin, David & Baldwin, John R., 2001. "Impact of the Adoption of Advanced Information and Communication Technologies on Firm Performance in the Canadian Manufacturing Sector," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2001174e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    15. Mark Doms & Eric J. Bartelsman, 2000. "Understanding Productivity: Lessons from Longitudinal Microdata," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 569-594, September.
    16. Laura Power, 1998. "The Missing Link: Technology, Investment, And Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 300-313, May.
    17. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2000. "Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 23-48, Fall.
    18. Bresnahan, Timothy F. & Trajtenberg, M., 1995. "General purpose technologies 'Engines of growth'?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 83-108, January.
    19. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Productivity, R&D, and the Data Constraint," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 347-374, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Eli Berman & John Bound & Zvi Griliches, 1994. "Changes in the Demand for Skilled Labor within U. S. Manufacturing: Evidence from the Annual Survey of Manufactures," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 367-397.
    21. Dale W. Jorgenson & Mun S. Ho & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2005. "Growth of US Industries and Investments in Information Technology and Higher Education," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Capital in the New Economy, pages 403-478, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Kevin M Stolarick, 1999. "Are Some Firms Better at IT? Differing Relationships between Productivity and IT Spending," Working Papers 99-13, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    23. Kevin M Stolarick, 1999. "IT Spending and Firm Productivity: Additional Evidence from the Manufacturing Sector," Working Papers 99-10, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. B. Atrostic, 2008. "Measuring U.S. innovative activity: business data at the U.S. Census Bureau," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 153-171, April.
    2. Richard Dion & Robert Fay, 2008. "Understanding Productivity: A Review of Recent Technical Research," Discussion Papers 08-3, Bank of Canada.
    3. Sang Nguyen & B.K. Atrostic, 2006. "How Businesses Use Information Technology: Insights for Measuring Technology and Productivity," Working Papers 06-15, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. B.K. Atrostic & Sang V. Nguyen, 2002. "Computer Networks and U.S. Manufacturing Plant Productivity: New Evidence from the CNUS Data," Working Papers 02-01, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Sang Nguyen & B.K. Atrostic, 2006. "How Businesses Use Information Technology: Insights for Measuring Technology and Productivity," Working Papers 06-15, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Yoann Barbesol & Thomas Heckel & Simon Quantin, 2008. "Élasticité de la production au capital informatique : estimations à l’aide de données d’entreprises," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 419(1), pages 55-71.
    4. Piva, Mariacristina & Santarelli, Enrico & Vivarelli, Marco, 2005. "The skill bias effect of technological and organisational change: Evidence and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 141-157, March.
    5. Timothy Dunne & John Haltiwanger & Lucia Foster, 2000. "Wage and Productivity Dispersion in U.S. Manufacturing: The Role of Computer Investment," NBER Working Papers 7465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Marianne P. Bitler, 2001. "Small business and computers: adoption and performance," Working Paper Series 2001-15, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    7. Dosi, Giovanni & Nelson, Richard R., 2010. "Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 51-127, Elsevier.
    8. Susanto Basu & John G. Fernald & Nicholas Oulton & Sylaja Srinivasan, 2003. "The Case of the Missing Productivity Growth: Or, Does Information Technology Explain why Productivity Accelerated in the US but not the UK?," NBER Working Papers 10010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Giovanni Dosi & Sébastien Lechevalier & Angelo Secchi, 2010. "Interfirm heterogeneity: nature, sources and consequences for industrial dynamics. An introduction," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00642680, HAL.
    10. Carolina Castaldi & Giovanni Dosi, 2008. "Technical Change and Economic Growth: Some Lessons from Secular Patterns and Some Conjectures on the Current Impact of ICT Technology," LEM Papers Series 2008/01, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    11. Ann P. Bartel & Casey Ichniowski & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2005. "How Does Information Technology Really Affect Productivity? Plant-Level Comparisons of Product Innovation, Process Improvement and Worker Skills," NBER Working Papers 11773, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Mirko Draca & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2006. "Productivity and ICT: A Review of the Evidence," CEP Discussion Papers dp0749, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. S J Ho & S K Mallick, 2010. "The impact of information technology on the banking industry," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(2), pages 211-221, February.
    14. Lucia Foster & John C. Haltiwanger & C. J. Krizan, 2001. "Aggregate Productivity Growth: Lessons from Microeconomic Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 303-372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Francesco Venturini & Ana Rincon-Aznar & Dr Michela Vecchi, 2013. "ICT as a general purpose technology: spillovers, absorptive capacity and productivity performance," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 416, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    16. Robert W. Fairlie, 2006. "The Personal Computer and Entrepreneurship," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(2), pages 187-203, February.
    17. Stefanie Haller & Iulia Siedschlag, 2011. "Determinants of ICT adoption: evidence from firm-level data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(26), pages 3775-3788.
    18. Benoit Dostie & Mathieu Trépanier, 2004. "Return to Computer Use and Organizational Practices of the firm," Cahiers de recherche 04-06, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée.
    19. Dostie Benoit & Jayaraman Rajshri, 2012. "Organizational Redesign, Information Technologies and Workplace Productivity," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-41, February.
    20. Susanto Basu & John G. Fernald & Nicholas Oulton & Sylaja Srinivasan, 2004. "The Case of the Missing Productivity Growth, or Does Information Technology Explain Why Productivity Accelerated in the United States but Not in the United Kingdom?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 9-82, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    computer input; information technology; labor productivity;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:05-01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.