and Development

bstract he benefits from the New Economy should accrue as improvements in productivity nd economic growth. But while the use of information and communication technology eems to have had a substantial impact on the performance of the United States conomy, the evidence for other countries is much weaker. This study does not find any ignificant correlation between ICT investment and economic growth in the period 985-99 for a sample of 42 countries for which ICT spending data are available. Even ore surprisingly and in contrast with some previous studies, the relationship is not tatistically significant for the subsamples of industrial or high-income countries either. here are at least three possible explanations for this apparent ‘productivity paradox’. he most obvious one is the fact that not many countries, other than the US, have yet nvested much in ICT. The second reason is that even if they have done so, they may ot have invested enough in complementary infrastructure, like education and skills, in rder to reap the benefits from ICT investment. Technology by itself is not a solution to ny development problem; it only provides an opportunity. The third and the most ontroversial explanation is that the neoclassical method applied in assessing th