ICT capital and services complementarities: the Italian evidence

Abstract

This article investigates whether Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) hardware and services play a complementary role in boosting economic growth. The main argument is that investments in ICT fixed capital are a necessary but not sufficient condition leading to productivity gains, above all in late adopter countries. Their effective implementation indeed requires on the one hand a changing economic structure characterized by a growing weight of service sectors and on the other hand complementary investments in ICT services, directed to ease the integration of the new technologies within firms’ boundaries. The analysis is conducted on a late industrialized country like Italy, and shows that in lagging countries the weak impact of ICT adoption is the result of three converging forces: relatively high share of manufacturing sectors, low-adoption levels of ICTs in traditional manufacturing sectors, inadequate investments in ICT services.