The Emerging Digital Economy: Conclusions

摘要

This book has been compiled with the purpose of adding to the complex picture of possible impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with a special focus on spatial effects and, at the same time, hopefully, in some instances, making the picture more comprehensible. This concluding chapter creates a synthesis of the major aspects of the book and lessons for future research, and explores avenues for public policy making in the emerging digital economy. It is appropriate to devote attention to the effects of the generation, diffusion and the use of ICTs, because they represent a new technological paradigm that belongs to the family of general purpose technologies (GPTs). A GPT has the potential for pervasive adoption and adaptation in a wide range or even all sectors in ways that drastically change operations and products as well as the relationships between different sectors. The characteristics of GPTs have been described by Bresnahan and Trajtenberg (1995, p. 84): "Most GPTs play the role of 'enabling technologies', opening up new opportunities rather than offering complete, final solutions." General purpose technologies also involve 'innovational complementarities', i.e. "the productivity of R&D in a downstream sector increases as a consequence of innovation in the GPT technology". Thus, GPTs have two major characteristics: generality of application; and, innovational complementarities. However, other characteristics of GPTs are also important (Lipsey et al. 1998): (ⅰ) much scope for improvement initially, (ⅱ) many varied uses, (ⅲ) applicability across large parts of the economy, and (ⅳ) strong complementarities with other technologies.