Therenewal of th old economy:Europe in an internationally comparative perspective

This paper deals with international comparisons of the contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to growth during the 1990s. It makes a distinction between ICT-producing industries and services on the one hand and industries and services that are intensive users of ICT on the other. The paper presents measures of output and employment shares and of the contribution of the ICT-producing and ICT-using sectors to output, employment and labour productivity growth. The main findings are that the differences between the United States and European countries are largely explained by the larger and more productive ICT-producing industry in the United States. The differences in the contribution of ICT using industries and services to growth are much smaller and more subtle between Europe and the USA. The paper also reviews recent evidence on ICT investment and capital. It appears that the growth contribution of ICT-use increased during the second half of the 1990s, but so far the effects are visible only in the United States. It also argued that many European countries have so far not succeeded to generate positive employment effects from intensive ICT-use