Domestic Information Technology Research Articles

The Rise of the New Mercantilists: Unfair Trade Practices in the Innovation Economy

The United States leads the world in the development, production, and use of information technology (IT). Because IT is not only the major driver of economic growth but also a key source of high-paying jobs in sectors like semiconductors, hardware, services, and software, most countries have adopted policies to win the international competition for IT jobs. While most have adopted legitimate policies such as research and development (RD - acquiring foreign IT products and services without paying for them through digital theft and forcing U.S. companies to give up their intellectual property; and/or - blocking or limiting access of foreign companies to markets through standards, government procurement, data privacy and other policies. Perhaps most troubling is that nearly all of the nations engaging in these unfair and distorting trade practices targeting U.S. IT leadership are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and signatories of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA). These nations and regions - from Asia, Europe, and South America - have aggressively put in place strategies that violate the spirit, and often the letter, of international trade rules. These countries want it both ways. They desperately want access to the U.S. market (and as reflected by the fact that the United States is running a nearly $800 billion massive trade deficit they are getting it) but they don't want to buy U.S.-produced IT goods and services. They want U.S. IT foreign direct investment, through offshoring, joint ventures, and R&D, but they also want to systematically weaken the competitive advantage of U.S. IT companies in favor of their domestic IT companies. These aggressive and unfair foreign IT trade policies lead to fewer high-paying IT jobs in the United States and threaten our global IT leadership position. But these policies don't just hurt the United States, they hurt the global economy. By raising the price of IT goods and services, forcing companies to produce IT in places other than where they would prefer, and reducing incentives to produce innovations and intellectual property, these mercantilist policies distort trade, leading to a lower standard of living for global citizens. These protectionist policies are not just targeted at IT, although that is the focus of this report. It is likely that other studies focusing on biotechnology, financial services, or aviation - to name just a few - would uncover similar practices. If we want to maintain America's IT leadership position the federal government needs to take a number of crucial steps: 1) The administration should vigorously and unequivocally enforce other nations' IT trade commitments under the WTO. In particular, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) needs to be more proactive in challenging nations that are violating WTO rules or engaging in other unfair practices. 2) Congress needs to increase USTR's appropriation so that it will have more resources to focus on trade enforcement. 3) Congress should allow companies to take a 25 percent tax credit for expenditures related to bringing WTO cases. 4) The administration should include the elimination of IT-based trade distortions among several important priorities when negotiating new bilateral trade agreements. 5) Congress should significantly expand funding for initiatives to educate the rest of the world on the importance to prosperity of innovation, IT usage, intellectual property protection, and market-based trade. 6) Congress should conduct hearings into the many and systematic strategies countries are using to challenge America's competitive advantage in IT (and other innovation-based industries). The United States is in the midst of a new trade war. But this time the war is not between socialism and capitalism, it's between two very different versions of capitalism: one that puts consumers, property rights, and market-based decisions at the center and one that puts producers, fair use, and government intervention at the center. It's a battle about which framework more effectively drives innovation and prosperity: the U.S. framework that focuses on the impact of corporate actions on consumer welfare, protects intellectual property and drives innovation, or the European and Asian framework that restricts innovation by giving priority to public rights.

NewsML을 고려한 기술동향정보 메타데이터에 관한 연구

기술동향정보는 연구개발 활동과 과학기술정책의 결정과정에서 매우 중요한 요소이다. 그러나 기술동향정보 메타데이터에 관한 연구는 미비한 실정이다. 이 연구는 뉴스분야에서 표준적 위치에 있는 NewsML을 참고하되, 국내 기술동향정보 서비스에서 사용된 요소를 고려하여 기술동향정보 메타데이터 요소와 스킴을 제안하였다. 이 연구 결과는 앞으로 국내의 실정에 맞는 기술동향정보 메타데이터 표준을 개발하기 위한 기초자료로 이용될 수 있을 것이다. The Information of Technology Trend is one of the critical factors for research activities. In addition, this information tremendously affects the decision-making process of Science and Technology Policy. However, metadata of this information has not gain much attention so far. This research suggests metadata element and encoding scheme that is based on NewsML and using metadata of domestic Information of Technology Trend service system. The result of this research provides the basic resources for developing standard metadata of Information of Technology Trend which is suitable for domestic information technology situation.

IT Industry Development and the Knowledge Economy

It is generally accepted that knowledge has become a third major factor of production, in addition to the traditional factors — labor and capital. Information technology production is a significant factor in the knowledge economy both because it is a major enabler of that economy and because it is itself highly knowledge intensive. Many countries around the world are looking for ways to promote the development of the knowledge economy, and information technology industries in particular. An important question is to what extent — and how — small developed countries might succeed in this endeavor. This study suggests a modified and more comprehensive version of the Ein-Dor et al. (1997) model of IT (information technology) industry success in small developed countries. Whereas the earlier model of IT industry success was based solely on the macro-economic theory of Grossman and Helpman (1991), the revised model suggested here incorporates Romer’s (1990) work in New Growth economics. A significant advance over earlier work in this area is the use of both longitudinal and time slice data. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the IT industry in four countries over a five-year period: Finland, Israel, New Zealand and Singapore. It analyses some changes that occurred over the period 1994 through 1998 and thus provides a reasonably comprehensive picture of the factors affecting the production of IT in these small developed countries. Our study reveals that four of the five endogenous variables studied have a close relationship to the development of IT industries in small developed countries. These variables are research and development, technological infrastructure, firm strategies, and capital availability. On the other hand, domestic IT use does not seem to be a major factor in IT industry development. Our analysis thus largely supports the more comprehensive model of IT industry success. These findings should be of interest to both researchers and policy makers seeking to develop the knowledge economy and information technology industries in particular.

The IT Scenario in Bangladesh

In recent years information technology (IT) has been touted as a promising spur to development. But whilst this has been true for some developing counties, what have been the implications for one some of the least developed countries such as Bangledesh? This paper seeks to address these implications. It describes the scenario in Bangladesh—the IT infrastructure, the domestic IT market, human resource development, the role of government, existing laws and policy regarding IT—from an economic point of view. The author then examines the problems of the IT sector and the prospects for IT to aid in developing the country.