Economics focus

摘要

After years of debate about the virtues or vices of the so-called "new economy", most economists now agree that America has, indeed, enjoyed stronger productivity growth since 1995, thanks largely to investment in information technology (IT). However, many also agree that Japan and Europe, for some reason, seem to have missed out on computer-driven productivity gains. The growth of labour productivity in Japan and most European countries has actually slowed since the mid-1990s. New research, however, suggests that the economic rewards from IT have spread outside America, but have not been measured correctly.