Croissance économique et diffusion des TIC : le cas de la France sur longue période (1980-2000)

Abstract

[fre] Croissance économique et diffusion des TIC : le cas de la France sur longue période (1980-2000) La contribution des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) à la croissance du PIB et de la productivité du travail serait en France de l'ordre de 0,2 à 0,3 % par an sur l'ensemble de la période 1980- 2000. Elle aurait connu une forte augmentation sur la seconde moitié des années 1990, en même temps que la contribution de la productivité globale des facteurs. Cette contribution des TIC serait deux fois plus forte dans les activités de services que dans l'industrie. La productivité globale des facteurs (PGF) a été beaucoup plus importante dans les activités productrices de TIC que dans les activités utilisatrices. Nos évaluations aboutissent à des enseignements qualitativement proches de ceux concernant les Etats-Unis où la contribution des TIC parait cependant quantitativement beaucoup plus forte. [eng] The contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to GDP growth and labour productivity growth in France is estimated to lie between 0.2 % and 0.3 % per year over the entire 1980-2000 period. According to our estimates, it increased sharply in the second half of the 1990s, in sync with the rise in the contribution of total factor productivity (TFP). The contribution of ICT was twice as strong in the service sector than in industry. Total factor productivity was much higher in the ICT-producing sectors than in those using it. Our estimates show that, in qualitative terms, productivity gains in Europe are close to those in the US, where the quantitative contribution appears nevertheless much stronger.

Comparing Labour and Total Factor Productivity Growth and Level in France, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States over the Past Century and in Recent Years §

“…However, since national accountants have been following the recommendations of the OECD-Eurostat Software Task Force, the measure of investment in software is more homogenous across countries. For example, the share of software in total ICT investment is comparable in the four countries (between 50% and 60%), while the previous data indicated that this share was twice as high in the United States as in France (see Cette, Mairesse and Kocoglu, 2000 [50] and 2002a [33]). Although this international harmonisation has made international comparisons of ICT contributions to productivity growth more robust, progress still needs to be made with regard to the measurement of own account software and the quality effect.…”

“…As stressed in Cette, Mairesse and Kocoglu (2000) [37], (2002) [33,34], the relative importance attached to these two effects in growth accounting analyses depends to a great extent on the methodological choices and practises of statisticians and national accountants in measuring prices and dividing the ICT investment series in terms of nominal values in the corresponding series in terms of "volumes" (say at the prices of the preceding year) and of price changes. Schematically, the more the estimation of price changes takes into account the improvements in ICT performances (through substantially upgraded products or new products), by relying in particular on hedonic methods, the larger is the contribution of capital deepening to productivity gains and the lower that of TFP, and conversely.…”

“…Very many studies (see for example Cette, Mairesse and Kocoglu, 2002 [33,34] and 2005 [35,36] for a review of the literature) have tried to assess the contribution of ICTs to GDP and productivity growth, many of them relying on macroeconomic evidence and on the growth accounting framework. Most, if not all, of these studies conclude that ICTs have had a positive and significant impact over the past two decades, via two main channels: -Substitution effects linked to the accumulation of ICT capital (capital deepening), which itself results from the continuous and rapid improvements in the productive performances of ICT investments, leading to a sharp fall in the price of ICT relative to other capital goods and labour.…”

“…Price statisticians and national accountants are gradually adopting hedonic methods to adjust prices for such quality improvements. However, there are substantial differences in the way in which countries apply these methods (see Cette, Mairesse and Kocoglu, 2000 [37], 2002 [33,34]). In order to prevent that such differences affect our comparison, and considering that ICT products with basically comparable characteristics are produced or imported, and hence invested in the four countries, we chose to rely only on the US national accounts price indices for ICT products.…”

Effets de la diffusion des technologies de l’information sur la croissance potentielle et observée

“…Un tel constat est rappelé dans de nombreuses analyses, par exemple Gordon (2000) 4 , Stiroh (2001) ou Cette, Mairesse et Kocoglu (2000, 2002a. Il amène à relativiser la signification économique d'éventuelles inflexions du rythme estimé de la productivité multifactorielle.…”