Essays on information technology, productivity growth, and employment structure

My dissertation addresses the impact of information technology (IT) on productivity growth and employment structure.; Chapter I examines the impact of IT on productivity growth in U.S. industries from 1960 to 1997. Using a semiparametric model, I find that the use of IT capital has a non-linear effect on productivity growth: IT causes an initial slowdown in productivity growth, but raises productivity in a later period. In particular, the use of IT capital decelerated productivity growth from the 1960s to the 1970s, but began to make a positive contribution to productivity growth after the 1980s. It explains about 50 percent of the acceleration in productivity growth from the 1970s to the 1990s. However, the deceleration effect is too small to explain the measured productivity slowdown in the 1970s.; Chapter II analyzes the effect of IT on the demand for educated workers in U.S. industries from 1960 to 1996. After decomposing this effect into IT use and adoption, I find that the use of IT is complementary with educated workers, and that educated workers have a comparative advantage in the adoption of IT. The IT use and adoption effects in total account for almost 40 percent of the acceleration in the demand for educated workers since 1970. Moreover, IT adoption explains about one-third of the total IT effect on skill upgrading in the 1970s.; Chapter III extends the analysis of the relationship between IT and productivity growth to five OECD countries from the early 1970s to 1990. Empirical results based on cross-industry samples in all five countries show that during this period, the benefit from IT investment was smaller than its acquisition cost. However, the benefit from IT investment exceeded its cost after the late 1980s, due to the rising trend in the rate of return to IT investment, and the rapid fall in the IT investment price. These results suggest that there is a lag between the acquisition of IT and its efficient use.