-----Original Message----- From: Kevin Taglang [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 1999 9:46 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Communications-related Headlines for 4/14/99 COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for APRIL 14, 1999 COMPUTER AGE GAINS RESPECT OF ECONOMISTS Issue: Economy While the impact of the Information Revolution can be felt in workplaces and classrooms -- from Main Street to Wall Street, scholars are still debating the effect of technology on the economy. Through the early 1990s productivity was nearly stagnate, leading top economist to question technologies contribution to the economy. Starting around 1996, however, there was a dramatic upswing in productivity growth, which nearly doubled pace from the rates of the past two decades. Daniel Sichel, an economist at the Federal Reserve wrote in a recent article that the nation's improved productivity performance, is "raising the possibility that businesses are finally reaping the benefits of information technology." The answer to the question of whether technology is responsible for the nation's recent streak of high growth and low inflation could have significant policy ramifications. A problem arises from increasing difficulty in actually assessing the impact of computer and communications on the output of the nation's booming service sector. Erik Brynjolfsson, an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, explains that the economic value of speed, quality improvements, customer service and new products are often not captured by government statistics. "We need a broader definition of output in this new economy, which goes beyond the industrial-era concept of widgets coming off the assembly line." [New York Times (A1), AUTHOR: Steve Lohr] (http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/04/biztech/articles/14tech.html) -------------------------------------------------------------- (c)Benton Foundation, 1999. Redistribution of this email publication -- both internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message.
