Information Technology and Growth

The goal of this paper is to provide new evidence on the substitution of IT for other types of capital and labor inputs in the U.S. economy. For this purpose we extend the pioneering analysis of Stephen Oliner and Daniel Sichel (1994) and our own earlier work, reported in Dale Jorgenson and Kevin Stiroh (1995). We focus on the massive substitution towards computers in both business and household sectors as the price of computers fell dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. We show that, in response, profit-maximizing firms and utility-maximizing consumers substituted IT for other goods and services, replacing other types of equipment and economizing on the use of labor effort.

本研究旨在为美国经济中信息技术（Information Technology, IT）对其他类型资本与劳动投入的替代关系提供全新实证依据。为此，本文拓展了斯蒂芬·奥林纳（Stephen Oliner）与丹尼尔·西歇尔（Daniel Sichel）1994年的开创性分析，以及我们此前发表于戴尔·乔根森（Dale Jorgenson）与凯文·斯特罗赫（Kevin Stiroh）1995年研究中的相关成果。鉴于20世纪80年代至90年代计算机价格大幅下跌，本文重点关注商业与家庭两大部门向计算机的大规模替代趋势。研究表明，在此背景下，追求利润最大化的企业与效用最大化的消费者会以信息技术替代其他商品与服务，替换其他类型设备，并节约劳动投入。