An Analysis on Institutional Flexibility and Self-propagating Dynamism of IT

本研究的目的是阐明制度灵活性与信息技术对经济的影响之间的关系，并为信息技术促进经济增长提供一些政策启示。本研究是由于观察到发达国家在20世纪80年代结束的工业社会和20世纪90年代开始的信息社会之间存在很大差异而引起的。本研究主要集中在（i）先进国家的制度灵活性的测量，（ii）制定一个分析模型，制度灵活性和IT之间的机制，和（iii）识别制度灵活性对IT的影响的决定因素。为执行本研究，制定了一个国际专家网络。这个网络有各种各样的专家，如数学家，系统科学家，和经验研究人员的信息技术和机构的主要政策含义如下。(1)在工业社会中，制度弹性对信息技术扩散没有影响，而在信息社会中，制度弹性对信息技术扩散有较大影响。(2)制度弹性影响信息社会IT投资的生产率。这意味着在日本这样的低灵活性国家，IT投资并不能改善其经济和社会。(3)制度弹性对信息技术发展影响的决定因素很多，国际比较分析表明，最积极的决定因素是人们对不确定性的总体态度，而这种态度是以创业水平为衡量标准的。

The objectives of this research are to elucidate the relationship between institutional flexibility and economic impact on IT and get some policy implications for economic growth stimulated by IT. This research was induced by the observation that there was large difference between the industrial society which ended in the 1980s in advanced countries and the information society which started from the 1990s. This research is mainly focus on (i) measurement of institutional flexibility in advanced countries, (ii) formulation of an analytical model for mechanism between institutional flexibility and IT, and (iii) identification of determinants of impacts of institutional flexibility on IT.An international network of experts was formulated for executing this research. This network has a variety of experts such as mathematicians, system scientists, and empirical researcher of IT and institutionsThe main policy implications of this research are as follows.(1) Institutional flexibility had no effect on IT diffusion in the industrial society, while it has a large impact on IT diffusion in the information society.(2) Institutional flexibility affects to the productivity of IT investment in the information society. It means that IT investment can not improve its economy and society in the low flexibility countries such as Japan.(3) There are many determinants of impacts of institutional flexibility on IT. The international comparative analysis demonstrates that the most positive determinants is the aggregate attitude of people to uncertainty which measured by the level of entrepreneurship.