Economic Analysis of IT innovation : International Comparison of Japan, US, China and Korea

本项目由两部分组成：(1)企业层面的IT与生产力分析；(2)IT产业创新。对于第一部分，本文对日本和美国企业的IT网络使用和生产率进行了企业层面的分析。这两个国家的公司都有积极的影响，而美国公司的生产率影响程度更大。这可能是由于IT投资战略的不同，即美国公司将IT作为提升公司竞争力的战略工具，而日本公司在公司管理过程中未充分利用IT系统。此外，还对中国企业的信息技术和生产率进行了按企业所有权类型划分的分析。研究发现，信息技术对国有企业转制为股份制企业的生产率影响较大。企业所有权的这种变化导致了生产率增长的动力，这些企业应该大量使用IT作为一种工具，以提高企业绩效。最后，我们发现了在韩国获取公司级别数据的困难。因此，我们对IT类股进行了分行业分析。对于项目的第二部分，即IT产业的创新，我们利用专利数据库，重点研究了中国企业在技术上追赶日本和韩国企业的情况。中国电子企业的整体技术能力仍然较低。然而，在通信设备行业，我们发现中国公司以惊人的速度赶上了日本公司。

This project consists of two parts, (1) firm level analysis of IT and productivity and (2) innovation of IT industry. As for the first part, the firm level analysis of IT network use and productivity has been conducted for Japanese and US firms. Positive impacts can be found in firms in both countries, while the degree of productivity impact is larger for US firms. This may be the result of differences in IT investment strategy, i.e., US companies uses IT as a strategic tool for firm's competitiveness, while Japanese firms underutilize IT system in their corporate management process. In addition, an analysis of IT and productivity by type of firm ownership has been conducted for Chinese firms. It is found that productivity impact of IT is larger for the firms converted from state owned company to stock holding one. Such changes in firm ownership induce motivation for productivity growth, and these firms are supposed to use IT intensively as a tool for better firm performance. Finally, we have found the difficulty to access to firm level data in Korea. Therefore, we have conducted the analysis of IT stocks by industry. As for the second part of this project, i.e., innovation of IT industry, we put our focus on technology catching up of Chinese firms to those in Japan and Korea, by using patent database. An overall technological capability of Chinese electronics firms is still low. However, in communications equipment industry ; we have found that Chinese companies have caught up with Japanese firms at an astonishing speed.