IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3582.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing the Productivity of Information Technology Equipment in U.S. Manufacturing Industries

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine J. Morrison
  • Ernst R. Berndt

Abstract

In this paper we report results of an empirical assessment of the cost reducing impacts of recent dramatic increases in stocks of "high-tech" office and information technology equipment (0) using annual data from various two digit US manufacturing industries over the 1952-1986 time period. While there are exceptions, on balance we find that in 1986, estimated marginal benefits of investments in this 0 equipment are less than marginal costs, implying over investment in 0 capital in 1986. The sign of the estimated elasticity of demand for labor with respect to changes in the stock of 0 capital is evenly divided in the fourteen industries, but whether positive or negative, in all industries this elasticity increases in absolute magnitude over time, indicating ever greater impacts of 0 capital on the demand for aggregate labor. Finally, our estimates of the elasticity of technical progress with respect to 0-capital are very small in magnitude implying that increases in o capital have only a small impact on technical progress.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine J. Morrison & Ernst R. Berndt, 1991. "Assessing the Productivity of Information Technology Equipment in U.S. Manufacturing Industries," NBER Working Papers 3582, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3582
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3582.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Osterman, 1986. "The Impact of Computers on the Employment of Clerks and Managers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 39(2), pages 175-186, January.
    2. Martin Neil Baily & Robert J. Gordon, 1988. "The Productivity Slowdown, Measurement Issues, and the Explosion of Computer Power," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(2), pages 347-432.
    3. Dudley, Leonard & Lasserre, Pierre, 1989. "Information as a substitute for inventories," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 67-88, January.
    4. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1269-1286, September.
    5. Abel, Andrew B., 1980. "Empirical investment equations : An integrative framework," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 39-91, January.
    6. Lester C. Thurow, 1987. "Economic Paradigms and Slow American Productivity Growth," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 333-343, Oct-Dec.
    7. Catherine J. Morrison, 1989. "Unraveling the Productivity Growth Slowdown in the U.S., Canada and Japan: The Effects of Subequilibrium, Scale Economies and Markup," NBER Working Papers 2993, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Pindyck, Robert S & Rotemberg, Julio J, 1983. "Dynamic Factor Demands and the Effects of Energy Price Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1066-1079, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bernstein, Jeffrey I., 1992. "Price margins and capital adjustment : Canadian mill products and pulp and paper industries," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 491-510, September.
    2. Karp, Larry & Perloff, Jeffrey M, 1988. "Dynamic Oligopoly: Estimation and Tests of Market Structure," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt7fk1119n, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    3. Mamuneas, Theofanis P., 1999. "Spillovers from publicly financed R&D capital in high-tech industries," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 215-239, February.
    4. Robert H. Patrick & Frank A. Wolak, 2001. "Estimating the Customer-Level Demand for Electricity Under Real-Time Market Prices," NBER Working Papers 8213, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Perloff, Jeffrey M, 1991. "Econometric analysis of imperfect competition and implications for trade research," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt46w1j22d, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    6. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:473-522 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Bernstein, J.I. & Nadiri, M.I., 1993. "Production, Financial Structure and Productivity Growth in U.S. Manufacturing," Working Papers 93-10, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    8. Robert S. Pindyck & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1982. "Dynamic Factor Demands Under Rational Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1015, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Karp, Larry S. & Shumway, C. Richard, 1984. "Issues And Methods In Estimating Adjustment Costs," Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 13(2), pages 1-8, October.
    10. Peter Thompson & Doug Waldo, 2000. "Process Versus Product Innovation: Do Consumption Data Contain Any Information?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(1), pages 155-170, July.
    11. Hossain, Ferdaus & Jain, Ruchi, 2001. "Financial Structure, Production and Productivity Growth in U.S. Food Manufacturing Industry," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20756, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Oliner, Stephen D. & Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Sichel, Daniel, 1996. "The Lucas critique revisited assessing the stability of empirical Euler equations for investment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 291-316, January.
    13. Alastair R. Hall, 2013. "Generalized Method of Moments," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 14, pages 313-333, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. M. Ishaq Nadiri & Ingmar Prucha, 2001. "Dynamic Factor Demand Models and Productivity Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 103-172, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. William A. Barnett & Milka Kirova & Meenakshi Pasupathy, 1996. "Technology Modeling: Curvature is not Sufficient for Regularity," Econometrics 9602002, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Jun 1999.
    16. Georgy Idrisov, 2010. "Factors of Demand for Imported Goods for Investment Purpose to Russia," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 138P.
    17. Bernstein, Jeffrey I. & Nadiri, M. Ishaq, 1990. "Product Demand, Cost Of Production, Spillovers And The Social Rate Or Return To R&D," Working Papers 90-53, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    18. Abel, Andrew B., 1990. "Consumption and investment," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 14, pages 725-778, Elsevier.
    19. Auerbach, Alan J. & Hassett, Kevin, 1992. "Tax policy and business fixed investment in the United States," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 141-170, March.
    20. Tsai, Diana H.A., 2018. "The effects of dynamic industrial transition on sustainable development," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 46-54.
    21. Berndt, Ernst R. & Morrison, Catherine J., 1995. "High-tech capital formation and economic performance in U.S. manufacturing industries An exploratory analysis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 9-43, January.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:3582. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.