Information and Communication Technologies and Productivity Growth -- A Survey of the Literature

The wealth of nations and their economic fortunes are ultimately driven by productivity. More productive workers earn higher wages and experience higher living standards than past generations. Hence, studying the driving forces behind productivity growth is an important question for researchers and policymakers alike.

In Europe, it is especially interesting as for much of the recent past it has been lagging behind in many of the relevant measures of economic growth and wellbeing, including productivity. This short paper relies on some of my recent work on the topic. As a review of the existing literature, it is necessarily incomplete and selective. However, there is a general shortage of recent studies that take a methodological approach to screening the literature and, more importantly, presenting the headline findings in a coherent and parsimonious way. This paper is an attempt to do that. While doing so, I hope to point out areas for future research while also summarizing what we do know (and what we do not know) about the impact of ICT on economic growth.