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THE CONTINUED STRENGTH and vitality of the U.S. economy continue to astonish economic forecasters. 1 A consensus is now emerging that something fundamental has changed, with "new economy" proponents pointing to information technology (IT) as the causal factor behind the strong performance. In this view, technology is profoundly altering the nature of business, leading to permanently higher productivity growth throughout the economy. Skeptics remain, however, arguing that the recent success reflects a series of favorable, but temporary, shocks. This argument is buttressed by the view that the U.S. econ-125

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This paper analyzes the impact of investment in information technology (IT) on the recent resurgence of world economic growth. We describe the growth of the world economy, seven regions, and fourteen major economies during the period 1989-2004. We allocate the growth of world output between input growth and productivity and find, surprisingly, that input growth greatly predominates! Moreover, differences in per capita output levels are explained by differences in per capita input, rather than variations in productivity. The contributions of IT investment have increased in all regions, but especially in industrialized economies and Developing Asia.