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This paper investigates the relationship between the log change in mobile broadband latency and total factor productivity (TFP) growth based on data for 130 countries. It finds that there is a strong negative correlation between TFP growth and one year lag of latency growth in OECD countries. The interpretation of the findings is that a 10 percentage points decrease in the growth of latency in period t-1 is associated with an increase of 0.3 percentage points in TFP growth. The findings are in accordance with the framework of General Purpose Technologies that suggests that the impact of new technologies often appear with a lag. Moreover, no relationship is found for the total sample or for non-OECD countries. One possible explanation could be that OECD countries have reached a higher maturity in digitalisation and automation in production processes and thus are able to take advantage of the benefits of lower latency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the world on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution driven by technological developments in ICT including artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT)? This paper focuses on IoT and how it might affect economic growth. We attempt to gauge the potential impact of IoT using: (1) regressions based on current IoT data; and (2) longer run estimates of growth accounting parameters based on those observed in a previous wave of the ICT-revolution. We find that: (a) according to definitions in the literature, IoT is an innovational complementarity to ICT; (b) early data already suggest an economically and statistically significant correlation between IoT connections and TFP growth, implying that an increase of 10 percentage points in the growth of IoT connections per inhabitant is associated with a 0.23 percentage points increase in TFP growth; (c) longer run predictions of the IoT contribution based on a growth-accounting framework suggest a potential global annual average contribution to growth of 0.99% per annum (pa) in 2018–2030, approximately $849 billion pa of world GDP in 2018 prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the effect of ICT and R&D on total factor productivity (TFP) growth across different industries in Sweden. R&D alone is significantly associated with contemporaneous TFP growth, thus exhibiting indirect effects. Although there is no significant short-run association between ICT and TFP, we find a positive association with a lag of seven to eight years. Thus, R&D affect TFP much faster than ICT-investments. We also divide ICT capital into hardware and software capital. To our knowledge, this distinction has not been made in any previous study analyzing TFP at the industry level. The results show that lagged hardware capital services growth is significantly associated with TFP growth. Hence, investments complementary to hardware are needed to reap the long-run TFP effects from reorganizing production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on panel data of 116 countries in 2014–2019, this paper investigates the association between mobile broadband speed and labor productivity. It finds no robust contemporaneous relationship for the total sample, but there is a significant and robust association when a one-year lag of mobile broadband speed is introduced. The interpretation of the results is that a 10 percent increase in mobile broadband speed in period t-1 is associated with 0.2 percent increase in labor productivity, ceteris paribus. The results are only robust for non-OECD and low-income countries, respectively. • Strong association between productivity and one-year lag of mobile broadband speed. • 10% increase in MBB speed in t-1 is associated with 0.2% productivity increase. • The results are only robust for low-income and non-OECD countries, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates labor productivity growth and the contribution to labor productivity growth in Swedish manufacturing during the diffusion of electric motors and ICT. The paper distinguishes between technology-producing, intensive and less intensive technology-using industries during these technological breakthroughs. The results show that labor productivity growth and the overall contribution to labor productivity growth was considerably higher in technology-producing industries following the diffusion of ICT. Moreover, the results presented here show no evidence that industries that were early adopters of electric motors and ICT, on average, would have contributed more to productivity growth in Swedish manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]