Browse by: "I"

The smart grid is revolutionizing electricity production and consumption. However, strategic use of ICTs and the Internet in energy innovation requires clarifying the roles of partners coming from distinct industries. And it begs for greater coordination of government departments and stakeholder communities that so far had unrelated competencies. This report outlines opportunities, challenges and public policy implications from shifts to ICT-enabled, "smart" electricity grids.

Investment in information technologies has by no means been confined to the United States and yet, average European or Japanese growth experience has been quite different. The paper compares the impact of ICT capital accumulation on output growth in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analysis uses a newly compiled database of investment in ICT equipment and software based on the System of National Accounts 1993 (SNA93). Over the past two decades, ICT contributed between 0.2 and 0.5 percentage points per year to economic growth, depending on the country. During the second half of the 1990s, this contribution rose to 0.3 to 0.9 percentage points per year. The paper shows that, despite differences between countries, the United States has not been alone in benefiting from the positive effects of ICT capital investment on economic growth nor was the United States the sole country to experience an acceleration of these ...

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the Internet are increasingly viewed as a vital infrastructure for all sectors of the economy. Already, employment in the ICT industry and employment of ICT specialist skills each accounts for up to 5% of total employment in OECD countries and ICT intensive-users account for more than 20% of all workers. In addition, the emerging "green" economy is a "smarter" economy that has increased demand for ICT-skilled jobs not only in the ICT sector, but more rapidly across the wider non-ICT economy. The further creation of new jobs can only occur, however, if the right mix of skills and competences are available in the labour market. Shortages of required ICT-related skills have been observed in some OECD countries, and this is particularly true for skills related to green ICTs.

This report, part of the 2004 OECD IT Outlook, is the first in a series looking at the distribution of ICT skilled employment in the economy, various ways in which ICT skills needs can be satisfied, and the role of ICT-skilled employment in international services sourcing, or offshoring.

Given their role in the current transformation of advanced economies, information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer the promise of new business and employment opportunities along with higher productivity gains, but also make new demands on skills. OECD countries are thus confronted with the dual challenge of ensuring that the growth of new industries and activities is not stifled by labour bottlenecks and skill mismatches and that their population is equipped to master the basic IT skills which these transformations require. Despite recent claims of a widespread IT worker shortage, this study argues that although there is indeed some evidence of tightness in labour markets for particular categories of IT workers, the main issue of concern for policy makers and firms should be the gap between the skills of current and future IT workers and those sought by firms.

Both short- and long-term strategies can be implemented to address the rapidly changing skill requirements for ICT ...

The new global information infrastructure will prove effective only if it can guarantee high-speed transmission throughout the network of all kinds of data -- text, images, sound or video -- in a secure manner while preserving its integrity.

Using new sectoral data on investment and capital services we carry out a growth accounting exercise on Spain 1985-2002. We compute the contribution to output and labour productivity growth of employment, non-ICT and ICT capital, labour qualification and Total Factor Productivity. Results are given for 29 different branches; individually and grouped into four clusters according to their ICT use intensity. Three ICT assets (hardware, communications and software) are considered. We find that although the ICT intensive group appears to be the most dynamic cluster, most of the impact on productivity is still to come. There is some evidence of a reversal of the productivity slow down of the nineties starting in the year 2000.

An international PEB seminar on “Information and Communications Technology and Educational Property Management” was held in Montreal, Canada, from 31 October to 3 November 2004. The aim of this seminar was to examine how information and communications technology (ICT) can be incorporated into educational property management by investigating three issues: how ICT can make educational spaces more functional and comfortable in a sustainable development perspective, how it can improve the security and protection of facilities and, lastly, how it can optimise their technical and administrative management. The participants had the opportunity to see the theories presented in each field illustrated concretely by visiting innovative institutions in Montreal and its suburbs. A brief summary of these visits is provided below.

This working paper aims to give an overview of the national policies that exist in the field of ICT and initial teacher education. Information on this topic was initially gathered via a survey, in the form of a country questionnaire, which was conducted as part of the analytical strand of the OECD study entitled “ICT and Initial Teacher Education”. In addition, desk research was conducted for 31 OECD countries. All of this work has been carried out under the auspices of the New Millennium Learners project. Responses to the survey were received from the following countries: Austria, Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Chile, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom...

This research review reports on articles presenting empirical research in the area of how teacher-training institutions work on preparing future teachers for the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in their future classrooms. It was conducted mainly in English and French and covers research in 11 OECD-countries during the years 2002–2009. The research is unanimous, even if it is not comprehensive, and it shows that ICT is not used regularly or systematically in the countries reviewed. There are good examples, carried out by enthusiastic teacher trainers, but only a minority of the student teachers benefit from this. Very few articles report innovative use of recent technology. Most of the research reports on the use of computers and traditional computer software. Overall, student teachers do not integrate technology into their teaching. A number of reasons for this are identified. The overall picture is that implementation is necessary at all levels (macro, meso, micro) for a successful outcome, but research also gives examples of how problems can be overcome at a micro-level, which is the level of the actors' pedagogical practice. Enthusiasts do seem to have room for maneuver, but the lack of incentives makes it difficult to involve everyone.

This study uses an econometric approach to estimate the contribution of three types of ICT investments (computer, software and communication) in 26 industries (the whole business sector) in 18 OECD countries over 1995-2007, based on the EU KLEMS Database. The estimated contribution of ICT investments to value added growth in the business sector varies from 1.0% a year in Australia to 0.4% a year in Japan. In one-third of the countries considered, the contribution of ICT investment was bigger or equal to the contribution of non-ICT investments. In most countries, computing equipment provided the largest contribution and accounted for over 50% of the overall ICT contribution. The only exceptions are Finland, where investments in communication equipment exceeded those in computing equipment, and Japan, where software was the most dynamic component of ICT investments. ICT producing industries account for no less than two-thirds of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Germany, Slovenia and the United Kingdom, about 60% in the United States and just below 50% in France and the Netherlands. In Denmark, the Czech Republic and Italy, TFP increased in the ICT producing industries whereas it decreased for the total business sector.

JEL classification: O47, E23, E22.
Keywords: Growth accounting, ICT, GMM, EU KLEMS.

The main policy directions derived from the analysis are to foster appropriate business environments for e-business and ICT uptake, and target programmes to overcome market failures to the extent that they are needed in particular areas.

Information and communication technology (ICT) connectivity (PCs and Internet) is very widespread in businesses of all sizes. As is the case with all technologies, small businesses are slower than large ones to adopt new ICTs. Commercial considerations and potential returns are the principal drivers of small business adoption and profitable use. Principal reasons for non-adoption are lack of applicability and little incentive to change business models when returns are unclear. SMEs also face generic barriers to adoption including trust and transaction security and IPR concerns, and challenges in areas of management skills, technological capabilities, productivity and competitiveness.

This paper shows ICT and ICT-related employment, ICT-related education and training, and ICT access and use by gender.

This report examines the effects of investments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on i) total labour demand; ii) labour demand by skill level; and iii) labour demand by industry in selected OECD countries over the period 1990-2012. ICT investments are estimated to have raised total labour demand in most countries over the period 1990-2007 but to have reduced it after 2007. In the latter period, the decrease in total labour demand has been accompanied by polarisation in favour of high and low skills and against medium skills. Yet, the effects on both total labour demand and polarisation are estimated to disappear in the long run. These changes have occurred through a process of labour reallocation across industries, away from manufacturing and towards some services, including care, culture and recreation.

As a follow-up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Geneva 2003 and lead-up to WSIS Tunis 2005, the UN Secretary General asked UNDP to facilitate the work of the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms for ICTD (TFFM). According to the WSIS Plan of Action, the TFFM is to undertake a thorough review of the "adequacy of the existing financial mechanisms" in meeting the challenges of “information and communication technologies for development” (ICT4D).
In this regard, UNDP asked the DAC to produce an analytical report on DAC Members’ financing ICT4D activities which would build on our existing work “Donor ICT Strategies Matrix”...

This paper examines current market trends and regulation for IPTV and also provides information on developments in the provision of IPTV service in a number of OECD countries.

This report deals with the role and specific problems of SMEs in implementing information technologies (IT), and the possibilities for public policy to support SMEs in their efforts to modernise and adapt to technical change.