Economic Aspects of Digital Information Technologies

238 Pages·1999·7.877 MB·English

by  Bernard Michael Gilroy (auth.), Dr. Thomas Gries, Dr. Leena Suhl (eds.)

Gries/Suhl (Eds.)
Economic Aspects of Digital Information Technologies
GABLER EDITION WISSENSCHAFT
Thomas Gries / leena Suhl (Eds.)
Economic Aspects
of Digital Information
Tech nolog ies
DeutscherUniversiUits Verlag
Die Deutsche Bibliothek -ClP-Einheitsaufnahme
Economic aspects of digital information technologies
/ Thomas Gries/Leena Suhl {Eds.}.
-Wiesbaden : Dt. Univ. -VerI. ; Wiesbaden : Gabler, 1999
{Gabler Edition Wissenschaft}
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ISBN-13: 978-3-8244-6848-5 e-ISBN-13: 978-3-322-85190-1
DOl: 10.1007/978-3-322-85190-1
Foreword
The rapid development of information and communication technologies has
been one of the major issues in the world economy of the last decade. Especially, the
fast growth of the Internet has introduced completely new economic and related issues,
like world-wide Electronic Commerce and its taxing, telework activities, distance
learning, and so on. It has become possible to split organizations into small units
which may form an electronically connected network taking new shapes in a flexible
way. Since the growth of the Internet has been fast and fairly uncontrolled, a strong
need for new laws, sometimes called Cyberlaw, has emerged. On the other hand, the
individual skills of information technologies may be of critical importance to the
success of a person in his or her professional career.
This book discusses several new aspects and economic impacts of digital
information technologies. A primer on Internet economics provides an introduction to
the structure of the Internet and its economic issues. Further related subjects are taxing
of the world-wide Electronic Commerce, Cyberlaw, learning with hypermedia, and
distance learning over the network. We also discuss the general impact of information
technologies on innovation dynamics, labor demand, and human capital depreciation.
Results of a recent survey on European telework activities give insight into rapid
organizational changes due to the digitalization of economies. General information
technology related aspects, like the need of a rapid transfer of new economic
knowledge and semantic integration of online information, are provided.
All authors are members of the Department of Business Administration,
Business Computing, and Economics at the University of Paderborn, Germany. We
wish to thank Dipl.Wirt.-Inf. Claus Biederbick for the enormous amount of work in
editing the book and bringing the individual articles into a consistent form.
Thomas Gries Leena Suhl
Table of Contents
Collected Abstracts IX
List of Contributing Authors XV
1. A Primer on Internet Economics 1
Bernard Michael Gilroy
2. The Impacts of Information Technologies on Innovation Dynamics 17
and Labor Demand
Thomas Gries and Stefan Jungblut
3. Information Technology, Endogenous Human Capital Depreciation 31
and Unemployment
Thomas Gries and Henning Meyer
4. Spatial and Organizational Patterns of the Transfer of New 47
Economic Knowledge: A Survey of the Literature and Some
Preliminary Results from a Case Study
Peter Liepmann
5. Taxing Electronic Commerce 67
Marko KOthenbiirger and Bernd Rahmann
6. Survey of Telework Activities in Europe 85
Wilhelm Dangelmaier, Dirk Forster, Volker Horsthemke, and Stephan Kress
7. Worldwide Learning with Java and New Information and 111
Communication Technologies
Winf ried Reiss
8. Java for the Web - Economic Implications 129
Ralf Menkhojj
9. Learning Management Science in Hyperspace 159
Astrid Blumstengel, Stephan Kassanke, and Leena Suhl
10. Semantic Integration of Emergent Online Communication 171
Wilfried Bohler
11. No Laws in Cyberspace? [Das Internet, ein rechtsfreier Raum?] 205
Dirk Michael Barton
Collected Abstracts
1. A Primer on Internet Economics
Bernard Michael Gilroy
One of the major developments in the world economy of the last decade has
been the complementary globalization of production and the rapid development of
information and communication technology as exhibited through the emergence of
the Internet. Although the Internet has received a great deal of publicity, there still
remains areas of vacuum with regard to research on the economics of the Internet
and a more wide-spread understanding of the prime issues involved. After a brief
history of the evolution of the Internet industry, a segmentation map of the Internet
industry is presented in order to aid one in understanding potential Internet issues
that will affect academics, political regulators, industry leaders, and the general
public in the future. Equipped with this greater understanding of the way the
Internet functions, economic issues and Internet concepts are selectively identified
and discussed within the basic structure of interoperability, network externalities
and the equitable statistical sharing of Internet resources.
We argue that the challenge to any analysis of the Internet and public policy
is that government and industry are not necessarily guided by tightly drawn
boundaries. Rather, as technology has evolved, the fortunes and misfortunes of
governments, producers, and consumers worldwide are becoming even more
closely linked through the Internet. To a large extent Internet activities all consist
of exchanges of information and collective goal setting while maintaining high
levels of competition. The Internet industry is embedded in a complex and rapidly
changing transactional environment in which firm-specific and industry-wide
complementarities exist. As transactional relationships increasingly evolve on a
global level, the effectiveness of the Internet will largely depend upon an awareness
of the economic logic of network structures.
2. The Impacts of Information Technologies on Innovation Dynamics and
Labor Demand
Thomas Gries and Stefan lungblut
Information technologies (ITs) give one of the most important impacts on
technological change and economic development. The capability to innovate and
successfully implement ITs has turned out to be one of the decisive factors to realize
advantages offered by the growing information society. At the macroeconomic level
advances in productivity as well as substantial job opportunities are commonly expected
as a result of IT diffusion. However, in contrast to economic reasoning both effects are not
yet observable. The diffusion of ITs has not led to the expected productivity growth on
aggregate. To get a better understanding of this subject the paper intends to develop an
x
Collected Abstracts
endogenous growth model to analyze the impacts of IT diffusion on employment and
growth. The process of growth is driven by innovation activities as well as the
accumulation of physical and human capital. The model predicts that fIrms continuously
adjust their technological capabilities in order to efficiently match the human capital
endowments of the workforce. Technological capabilities on the other hand determine the
structure of labor demand and the steady state rate of aggregate growth. The model shows
that ITs affect aggregate growth in two opposite directions. At the one hand ITs increase
innovation activities. But ITs also increase the demand for human capital necessary for
innovation and production activities. Both effects counteract. As a result the overall
impact of ITs on growth is ambiguous. We show that only economies with sufficiently
educated workers are able to gain from IT diffusion in terms of growth opportunities.
Although competition will force fIrms to implement ITs, the aggregate rate of growth
decreases unless the economy sufficiently increases investments in human capital.
3. Information Technology, Endogenous Human Capital Depreciation and
Unemployment
Thomas Gries and Henning Meyer
In this paper we analyze certain impacts of information technologies [ITs] on
unemployment. It is well known that all sectors and activities are affected by the
introduction of new ITs. This technological change goes along with the requirement to
adjust education. Employees entering the labor market not only have to be able to use
the newest ITs available, but have to adjust their skills continuously to newer
technologies, too. To be able to analyze the effects of the introduction of ITs on
unemployment we use a model with a Putty-Clay technology. Two types of labor with
different abilities to adjust to new ITs are considered. As a result information
technologies do not only create jobs. Instead employees who are not able to keep up
with the innovation process will become unemployed simultaneously. Especially older
workers are affected by this mechanism. Therefore, a continuous introduction of new
ITs may be a major reason for the rising unemployment of older workers.
4. Spatial and Organizational Patterns of the Transfer of New Economic
Knowledge: A Survey of the Literature and Some Preliminary Results from
a Case Study
Peter Liepmann
New economic knowledge and innovations are prerequisites to dynamic efficiency.
They are particularly relevant under the condition of intensive world-wide competition.
Firms in locations with underdeveloped technological infrastructures need assistance by
institutions which transfer new economic knowledge between organisations and across
space. Linear, complementary, and feedback models of the innovation process are
considered to describe the potential scope for transfer activities. Recipient fInns should
have F&E personnel of their own to adapt new economic knowledge from external
Collected Abstracts XI
sources to firm-specific applications. Otherwise they will have to rely on specific new
economic knowledge which is already applicable without alterations. There are
appropriability restrictions for transfer activities when private, tacit, and specialised new
economic knowledge is concerned. These restrictions may only be overcome by various
forms of long-term co-operation and trust relations. The paper surveys theoretical and
empirical work on spatial and organisational patterns of the transfer of new economic
knowledge and reports preliminary results from a regional case study.
5. Taxing Electronic Commerce
Marko Kiithenburger and Bernd Rahmann
Electronic commerce is expected to increase tremendously in the next years. As
electronic commerce is an exchange of goods and services, it is also subject to value
added taxation. Hence, the question of how a tax system should be designed to include
these activities arises. We address this question by reviewing the two basic cross-border
commodity taxation systems and the associated pros and cons in terms of efficiency and
information requirements. A discussion of the application of these taxation principles to
electronic commerce is presented in section 4 and 5. We conclude that the origin principle
is likely to be the more appropriate tax system to deal with electronic commerce.
Unfortunately, the political applicability of this tax system is limited as the question of tax
revenue distribution among countries is still unsettled.
6. Survey of Telework Activities in Europe
Wilhelm Dangelmaier, Dirk Forster, Volker Horsthemke, and Stephan Kress
The phenomenon telework is nowadays known in all parts of the European
Union. Especially the flexibility of telework in the dimensions time and location of
task execution makes it an innovative form of work organisation. It is developing
rapidly and today there are already more than 2 million Europeans who practice
telework in one form or another (1.25 million in 1994). Nevertheless, there still seems
to be a long way to go because reality has often outperformed expectations.
Estimations still differ a lot and had to be revised many times (especially in Europe,
where Telework is scattered disproportionately over the distinct states with its
different development stages).
The following chapters sum up the results of an internet survey on telework
activities in Europe. This survey is embedded in the COBIP project which analyses
the usage of workflow tools in the management of telework. The survey's aim was to
gather up-to-date information about telework-related projects in organizations. The
whole study was to be on a European scale with focus on the European Union
members. It was obvious that the survey could neither be representative nor could
statistically sound due to the nature of the sources available. Therefore, it was to be,
and is, only a random sample of currently undertaken telework projects in Europe.
After a short historical introduction the actual penetration of telework will be
XII Collected Abstracts
analyzed. Then most recent projects will be examined according to different criteria
of huge contemporary importance based mainly on an internet research. These
analyses will make it possible to predict the near future of telework and compare it
with latest development tendencies.
7. Worldwide Learning with Java and New Information and
Communication Technologies
Winfried Reiss
This paper together with the underlying set of Applet-based Java frames in
an HTML-file shows the possibility of using Java as a basis for interactive
economics teaching.
Relying heavily on the object-oriented structure of the Java language and on the
extensive library of routines, it is fairly easy to construct a series of lessons in which
users have to decide on possible answers, input points into charts, and do their own
calculations and derivations. These lessons can also include simulations including
tatonnement processes.
As I want to present an interactive computer based training program, a paper
based description is, however, inadequate; one should test it or have it demonstrated.
8. Java for the Web - Economic Implications
Ralf Menkhoff
This article demonstrates, that programming languages are important not only
for, e.g., computer scientists but also for economists. With the growing importance of
the web new challenges and opportunities emerge in both software production and
software utilization. Hence, I will show some important characteristics of an
economically "ideal" programming language for the web and whether Java meets these
properties. Moreover, I try to work out fundamental economic implications of using
Java as a web-based programming language. In order to derive the inferences I will
choose three different outlooks: the perspectives of producers, users, and traders.
No attempt is made to fuel the discussion about total cost of ownership (TCO).
The analysis is limited to Java and directly related technologies. Competing
technologies like, e.g., ActiveX (a development of Microsoft) will not be considered.
9. Learning Management Science in Hyperspace
Astrid Blumstengel, Stephan Kassanke, and Leena Suhl
The paper discusses approaches of learning an interdisciplinary subject like
Operations Research/Management Science. The ability to apply quantitative methods in
business has to be learned by training similarly to learning a craft. We argue that this
learning process can be supported by case studies complemented with a computer based
hypermedia learning environment. We report about experiences from the development
and use of ORWell, a hypermedia learning environment for ORIMS. The project team