1,720,993 research outputs found
The Swedish ICT Miracle - Myth or Reality
Get PDFThis paper investigates the relative labor productivity level for total manufacturing in Germany, Sweden and the US for the period 1980–2001. The paper also presents estimates of labor productivity levels for 18 different manufacturing industries for the period 1993–2000. The results show that the Swedish manufacturing productivity caught up with German and US productivity in the 1990s, overtaking the German level in 1995 and coming very close to the US level by the end of the 1990s. It has been argued that much of the Swedish surge in labor productivity during the second half of the 1990s was due to the spectacular growth of the Radio, television and communication equipment (RTC) (ISIC 32) industry. However, this paper shows that since 1998 Swedish RTC productivity has been declining relative to the corresponding industry in Germany and the US. Moreover, it is shown that the productivity growth of the ICT-producing industries is very sensitive to the value added price deflators used to calculate real value added growth rates. It is also shown that intermediate input prices have a large impact on the measured real value added growth for the Swedish Radio, television and communication equipment industry. It is argued that the accuracy of the price statistics for intermediate inputs is very uncertain for the Swedish Radio, television and communication equipment industry. Therefore estimates based on the US intermediate input price deflators suggest that the productivity growth of the Swedish Radio, television and communication equipment industry during the 1990s is partly a statistical artefact. This implies that the productivity growth of total manufacturing also has been overestimated.Information and communication technology (ICT); Productivity; Technological change; Value added deflators
How Much does Sweden Invest in Intangible Assets?
Get PDFIn this paper I attempt to replicate for Sweden the Corrado, Hulten and Sichel (2006) and Marrano and Haskel (2006) working papers on spending on intangible assets in the US and the UK. Based on their measurement methods the total spending on intangibles in Sweden in 2004 was 277 billion SEK or 10.6 percent of total GDP. Based on total spending it can be estimated that total investment in intangibles was 227 billion or approximately two-thirds of the total investment in fixed capital in 2004. Thus, investment in intangibles was considerable in 2004. The corresponding figures for the UK and the US were 10.9 and 13.1 percent, respectively. Even though the measurement methods of intangibles must be further developed, it could be argued that intangibles in the future should be included in the Swedish national accounts.Intangibles; Investment; Economic growth
Does Hedonic Price Indexing Change Our Interpretation of Economic History? Evidence from Swedish Electrification
Get PDFRapid price decreases for ICT-products in the 1990s have been largely attributed to the introduction of hedonic price indexes. Would hedonic price indexing also have large effects on measured price and productivity during other technological breakthroughs? This paper investigates the impact of hedonic and matched model methods on historical data for electric motors in Sweden 1900–35. The results show that during the productivity boom of the 1920s, the constant prices for electric motors decreased by 9.7 and 8.1 percent per year depending on whether hedonic or matched model price indexes were used. This indicates high productivity growth in the industry producing electric motors 1920–29. In contrast to Sweden, the US annual total factor productivity was only, according to current best estimates, 3.5 percent in Electric machinery compared to 5.3 percent in manufacturing 1920–29. However, hedonic price indexes were not used to calculate US productivity. Moreover, in comparison to the matched model, the hedonic price index on average overestimates price decreases when prices are decreasing and overestimates price increases when prices are increasing. However, the total effect of the two different price indexes remains approximately the same in 1900–35. Finally, it is shown that the price decreases for electric motors in the 1920s are not in par with the price decreases for ICT-equipment in the 1990s, even if hedonic indexing is used.Hedonic Price Index; Electric Motor; Productivity Growth; Electrification; ICT Revolution; Productivity Growth; General Purpose Technologies
Do hedonic price indexes change history? The case of electrification
Get PDFRapid price decreases for ICT-products in the 1990s have been largely attributed to the introduction of hedonic price indexes. Would hedonic price indexing also have large effects on measured price and productivity during earlier technological breakthroughs? This paper investigates the impact of hedonic and matched model methods on historical data for electric motors in Sweden 1900–35. The results show that during the productivity boom of the 1920s, current prices for electric motors decreased by 13.2 and 12.2 percent per year depending on whether hedonic or matched model price indexes were used. This indicates high productivity growth in the industry producing electric motors in 1920–29. In contrast to Sweden, the US annual total factor productivity growth was only, according to current best estimates, 3.5 percent in Electric machinery compared to 5.3 percent in manufacturing in 1920–29. However, hedonic price indexes were not used to calculate US productivity. Finally, it is shown that the price decreases for electric motors in the 1920s were not on par with the price decreases for ICT-equipment in the 1990s, even if hedonic indexing is used in both cases.Hedonic price index; Electric motor; Productivity growth; Electrification; ICT revolution; Productivity growth; General Purpose Technologies; Innovation
Parallel Development? Productivity Growth Following Electrification and the ICT Revolution
Get PDFThis paper investigates labor productivity growth and the contribution to labor productivity growth in Swedish manufacturing during electrification and the ICT revolution. 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 ICT revolution. 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.Electrification; ICT Revolution; Productivity Growth; Technological Change
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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