17-43

• Κορρές, Γιώργος Μ.
• Πολυχρονόπουλος, Γιώργος

The measurement of Information Communication Technology (ICT) investment in bothnominal and volume terms is crucial for estimating the contribution of ICT to economic growth and performance. Data availability and measurement of ICT investment based on national accounts vary considerably across OECD countries, especially as regards measurement of investment in software, deflators applied, breakdown by institutional sector and temporal coverage. In the national accounts, expenditure on ICT products is considered as investment only if the products can be physically isolated (i.e. ICT embodied in equipment is considered not as investment but as intermediate consumption). This means that ICT investment may be underestimated and the order of magnitude of the underestimation may differ depending on how intermediate consumption and investment are treated in each country’s accounts. In particular, it is only very recently that expenditure on software has been treated as capital expenditure in the national accounts, and methodologies vary greatly across countries. According to the OECD’ report, only the United States produces estimates of expenditure on the three different software components (i.e. pre-packaged, own account and customised software); other countriesusually provide estimates for some software components only. The difficulties for measuringsoftware investment are also linked to the ways in which software can be acquired, e.g. via rental and licences or embedded in hardware. Moreover, software is often developed on own account. This paper attempts to review the most important measures of information economy and also to examine and analyze the effects from Information and Communication technologies.

• Economics and Business

• Economics

Information Economy, Innovation Activities, Modernization, Competitiveness, Growth

JEL classification: O00, O31, M13