Research on Informatization of Industries and its Effects on Performances since 1985 : An Empirical Analysis including International Comparisons

在美国，所谓的“生产率悖论”从20世纪80年代末就开始讨论了。但是，从上世纪90年代初开始，美国经历了长达9年的景气增长期，最近似乎结束了争论。但在日本，主要是受经济长期不景气的影响，民间企业的高层管理人员也面临着是否投资IT（信息技术）的难题。在本研究中；首先分析了日本工业信息化的现状，然后分析了信息技术对各行业生产力的影响。在分析中，我们定义了“信息化投资”、“信息化股票”及其“Slack”的概念，并利用产业部官方公布的数据对其进行了估算。并运用增长核算和包络数据分析的方法对新定义的数据进行分析，得出以下初步结论：(1)1990- 1994年间，纺织、制浆、造纸、机械等7个行业的信息化投资对生产率的提高没有贡献；(2)在同一时期，多个行业的信息化资本出现了松弛现象，这意味着这些行业存在效率低下的现象。从这些初步的结论，我们可以说，在日本，“生产率悖论”在许多行业盛行，至少到1994年。金融和保险业是例外，因为至少在1988-89年期间，由于信息化投资，该行业的生产率得到了提高。

In the United States, the so-called "Productivity Paradox" has been discussed since the late 1980's. U.S. economic performance, however, has experienced a 9-year long economic boom since early 1990's, and the discussions seem to end these days. But, in Japan, mainly due to a prolonged economic slump, even top executives of private companies are now facing a very difficult decision problem whether they should invest in IT (Information Technology) or not.In this research; we first analyzed present situations of informatization of industries in Japan, and then effectiveness of IT on productivity industry by industry. In the analysis, we defined concepts of "Informatized Investment," "Informatized Stock," and its "Slack", and estimated them by making use of MITI's officially published data. And, applying methods of growth accounting and EDA (Envelope Data Analysis) to the newly defined data, we have reached tentative conclusions as follows : (1) in 7 industries including Textile, Pulp and Paper, machine r y, Informatized investment did not contribute increase in productivity during 1990-94, (2) during the same period, Slacks on Inforrnatized capital were observed in several industries, which means that inefficiencies existed in these industries.From these tentative conclusions, we can say that, in Japan, "Productivity Paradox" prevailed in many industries at least until 1994. The exception is the case of Finance and Insurance industry in the sense that industry enjoyed the increase in productivity due to Informatized Investment at least during 1988-89.