Policy brief

ICT for growth: a targeted approach

This policy contribution assesses the broad obstacles hampering ICT-led growth in Europe and identifies the main areas in which policy could unlock

Publishing date
20 June 2012
Authors
Michał Grajek

  • This Policy Contribution assesses the broad obstacles hampering ICT-led growth in Europe and identifies the main areas in which policy could unlock the greatest value. We review estimates of the value that could be generated through take-up of various technologies and carry out a broad matching with policy areas.

  • According to the literature survey and the collected estimates, the areas in which the right policies could unlock the greatest ICT-led growth are product and labour market regulations and the European Single Market. These areas should be reformed to make European markets more flexible and competitive. This would promote wider adoption of modern data-driven organisational and management practices thereby helping to close the productivity gap between the United States and the European Union.

  • Gains could also be made in the areas of privacy, data security, intellectual property and liability pertaining to the digital economy, especially cloud computing, and next generation network infrastructure investment.

Standardisation and spectrum allocation issues are found to be important, though to a lesser degree. Strong complementarities between the analysed technologies suggest, however, that policymakers need to deal with all of the identified obstacles in order to fully realise the potential of ICT to spur long-term growth beyond the partial gains that we report.

About the authors

  • Michał Grajek

    Michał Grajek is an Associate Professor of Economics at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT). Previously he worked as a research fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and the Humboldt University of Berlin. He received his doctorate degree in economics with honors (summa cum laude) from the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in Germany and completed his master's studies of economics at the Warsaw University in Poland and undergraduate studies of economics at Columbia University in the U.S..

    Michał's research focuses on the frontier of Industrial Organization, where he utilizes advanced econometric methods to address issues related to modern economy. His areas of research include topics such as network effects, compatibility, and standardization with particular emphasis on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). He has also worked on investment and regulation issues in network industries and standardization in international trade and published in leading academic journals in the area of Industrial Organization, Law and Economics and International Business.

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