In the last six years, the contribution of ICT capital intensity to hourly productivity growth has been substantial. This rate is only 0.39 points per year in France and Germany, compared to 0.91 points in the USA and 0.85 points in the United Kingdom.
In any case, these levels are due to a significant acceleration compared to the previous period. However, the levels reached are very different. The parallelism between the levels and developments in the UK and the USA on the one hand, and France and Germany on the other, is striking.
Compared to the recalled observation at the European level, the results are surprising. It makes the UK an exception compared to the USA, which shows no signs of lag in the development of ICT.
The quality of work reflects the productivity of hours worked by personnel category. Here, gender, age and diploma were used as criteria for calculating the quality. The contribution of job quality, which was equivalent in the four countries in the 1995-2001 period, masks the different situations.
As a matter of fact, the slowdown in job quality in France and Germany is mainly due to the age component. It is the diploma describing the deterioration in quality in the United States.
The quality of work reflects the social policies implemented in France to promote youth employment. It illustrates stylized realities, such as the increase in employment of non-graduates in the United States.
In the UK, the share of graduates in employment has risen from a low level and job quality has accelerated over the past two decades.
Four countries show gains in total factor productivity. However, paradoxically, the country where these gains were weakest in the 1995-2001 period was the United States of America. In the 1990s, TFV gains accelerated in France, Germany, and the United States.
On the other hand, it has slowed down in the United Kingdom. however, it reached a very high level in the 1990-1995 period. In short, hourly labor productivity gains in the four countries studied are comparable.
However, ICT has a higher contribution in the United Kingdom and the United States. But this is offset by slower TFV gains.
The assessment of American TFP gains stands out from the few other studies in which they appear to be significantly higher for the years 1995-2001. This difference is explained by the databases and methods used.
The time series used here are taken from the database. As a result, the average annual growth rate of achieved hourly productivity was close to 1.92% during the 1995-2001 period.
Capital series reflect different approaches. Investment in ICT does not include communication equipment. Investment in IT includes office machinery.
Finally, it should be noted that it was obtained from a residual calculation in the evaluations and in all studies.
As for the methods, three important differences should be noted. Unlike most studies, the quality of the work is taken into account here. The results obtained are close to his own.
It results from a comparison of capital services with the capital stock, growth rate and share of capital costs in value added. Calculating this share requires user costs.
Calculating the latter involves a rate of return, a rate of depreciation, and possibly tax adjustments. On the other hand, when an internal rate of return is calculated, this equality is respected by definition.
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Finally, the biggest differences in the different approaches relate to the assessment of the share of the total capital charge in value added.
There are fundamental differences in the observed TFV assessments between the results presented here and those of other studies. This is due to the growth rate and the difference in the definition of the ICT set, the rate of return used.
Finally, the recession in the United States of America in 2001 affected the assessments.
The impact of the economic situation on the results deserves to be underlined. However, this recession has not prevented the progress of especially ICT investments from one period to the next.
Yaşam Ayavefe
