Research On The Economic Effects Of Information Technology

From March,1991to June,2000, the United States experienced an economy boomingperiod which lasts about nine years and four months. This sets the record of the longest periodof economical growth in its history, which features high growth, low unemployment and lowinflation. This growth is hard to explain by, even contradictory to previous economicaltheories. Therefore, it is called the New Economical Phenomenon, which is closely related tothe information technology according to most researchers home and aboard. The informationtechnology gives birth to many IT companies and these companies combine into an IT chain,which results in the booming of the IT industry. And its booming growth also benefits fromAmerica’s sound tertiary industry, active capital market innovation and great support from thegovernment. Because of its spread and infiltration, the IT industry greatly promoted thedevelopment of traditional industries by upgrading them and their productivities. And thiscreates a second economical benefit, which results in great economical and social benefit forthe American economy. In a word, the innovation and spread of the information technology isresponsible for the American economy miracle, which features a coexistence of high growth,low unemployment and low inflation.The strategic emerging industries are to be greatly supported in China’s TwelfthFive-year Program and the new generation of information technology is considered to be oneof the seven strategic emerging industries and to be promoted. Therefore, it is considered tobe an important issue to understand the promotion and influence of the informationtechnology to the economic growth and to put forward policies and suggestions to promotethe development of the information technology to promote the economic growth. The Someopinions on the information consumption to expand the domestic demand issued by the StateCouncil in August,2013points out that a long term system to promote the constant and stablegrowth of information consumption should be established to promote the demand and tocreate a new economy growth point. And the information consumption should be promotedand industries should be transformed and the life of the public should be improved. This is significant for the short term and long term of economic growth and structure transformation.Based on the successful international experience and domestic economy development, itis of great theory value and practical significance to study the promotion of the informationtechnology to economical growth.This thesis employs theoretic analysis and empirical analysis and emphasizes oneconometric analysis. Theoretically speaking, this thesis starts with technology innovationand economy growth theory and implores the relationship between information technologyand economy growth and the promotion of information technology to economical growth.Anda new production function model with information technology as the independent variable isestablished and this thesis does the empirical analysis with the data of the Chinese economyto calculate the contribution of information technology to the economical growth. At the sametime, this thesis will analyze the successful experience and find out about our shortcomings inorder to put forward some policies and suggestions to promote the IT innovation and diffusionin China by a comparative study of the IT industries and their development, IT industries andtheir structure transformation and the IT industries and their employment structures.This thesis consists of eight chapters and Chapter4, Chapter5and Chapter6are its mainchapters. With the theoretical background of technology innovation and economy growth, thisthesis studies the influence of information technology to economy growth from two aspects.Horizontally, it consists of technology innovation which means the direct influence of ITindustries on economy and technological diffusion which means indirect influence ofinformation technology on economy caused by diffusion into other industries. Vertically, thestudy of how information technology is greatly employed in micro-economy subject(companies) and of its influence on the mid-economy field (industries) and of its finalinfluence on the macro-economy growth is significant. Theoretically, this thesis employsregression analysis and Grainger causality analysis to study the relationship between ITinnovation and economy growth; then the IT factor is brought into the economy growth modelto analyze the influence of information technological diffusion. In the end, based on the twoaspects, this thesis analyzes the influence of technology innovation and technological diffusion to economy growth with the method of empirical analysis.As the typical representative of technology innovation and diffusion, informationtechnology makes great contribution to the economic growth. Without the innovation anddevelopment of the IT industries, there would not be the rapid growth of the global economy.So the strategic decision of China should be paying much attention to the development of ITindustries, especially the further economy growth relying on the innovation and diffusion ofthe information technology, which is also the conclusion of this paper.