R&D to Production 1991 – 1999 mean (OECD, 2003)

The OECD gathers and analyses information regarding economic growth and international trade among member countries. Since technology is not wide spread across an economy, the study of technology intensity impact on an economy can be challeging. In an effort to contribute to research in this area, the OECD established a classification for the industry (see more). This post presents some of the results used to determine their classification. The following table shows the mean of R&D over production for different industries during the period of 1991 to 1999 for 12 OECD countries. Below the mean for the different levels of Technology Intensity.

Reference:

[1]  OECD, 2011. ISIC REV. 3 Technology Intensity Definition Classification of Manufacturing Industries into Categories Based on R&D Intensities. OECD Directorate For Science, Technology And Industry Economic Analysis And Statistics Division.

Industry and Technology Intensity

The Semi-conductor industry, pushed by the Moore’s Law, nurtures the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated consumer electronics. Due to their daily presence in most of our lives, consumer electronics and the internet technologies cover a large percentage of main stream technology reviews.  However, there are other industries as dynamic and innovative as the two mentioned above. Do these industries affect our lives as much (or more) than information and communications technologies? The first post of Tech-Think Glass will elaborate on technology intensity (TI) definition and the industries that, besides computers and information technology, are considered as Hi-Tech.

An industry is technology intensive (High-tech) if the investment in innovation and scientific research efforts determine a firm’s competitiveness and economic value. Firms within this industry had driven economic growth, international trade and countries’ advantages. Thus, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2011) gives special attention to its development and measurement. Table 1, shows OECD classification with R&D to value (sales) and R&D to production used as proxy (see more). These two fail to explain TI entirely (Palda K., 1986), therefore researchers suggest other estimations, example: seismic (Coccia, 2005) and multidimensional (Felsenstein , D., R. Bar-El, 1988) approaches.

Source: OECD, ISIC REV. 3 TECHNOLOGY INTENSITY DEFINITION.

A firm in the manufacturing industry regarded as more innovative, doubled the growth in net income and market capitalization of their non-innovative counterparts from 2006 to 2010 (WEC, 12). Yet, which of these products has a deeper impact in the world’s productivity and efficiency?  The product life cycle indicates that electronics, computer and office equipment have a more dynamic market (more) while the value added shows that medical, precision and optical instruments has the biggest market in terms of money (more). Still, these facts do not mean these industries helped to produce more with less driving to real economic growth.

Cannot be doubt that, information technologies are drivers of globalization and allowed more complex supply chains for manufacturing. The point to stress is that these technologies do not create value by themselves, rather open the window for new business models that can bring real benefit to the world’s wellbeing. As a matter of fact, IT allowed the existence of new services and made them to oversize the share of GDP of industry and agriculture in most of the OECD countries (OECD, 2011 B). The motivation of following posts will be to determine which technologies impact productivity and expand economic welfare.

Join me on the discussion:

Besides IT, what other high-technology industry or product you consider is following the ideal of classical economics and has a significant impact in the productivity of the world economy?

Reference:

[1] Coccia M., 2005. Measuring intensity of technological change: The seismic approach. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 72, 117 – 144.

[2] Felsenstein D., R. Bar-El, 1988. Measuring the technological intensity of the industrial sector: A methodological and empirical approach.

[3] OECD, 2011. ISIC REV. 3 Technology Intensity Definition Classification of Manufacturing Industries into Categories Based on R&D Intensities. OECD Directorate For Science, Technology And Industry Economic Analysis And Statistics Division.

[4] OECD, 2011. OECD Factbook 2011-2012: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics

[5] Palda, K., 1986. Technological intensity: concept and measurement. Research Policy, 15, 187-198.

[6] World Economic Forum, 2012. The Future of Manufacturing Opportunities to drive economic growth. A World Economic Forum Report in collaboration with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.

 

Mediana de Salarios en Panamá 2011

El Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo, entidad parte de La Contraloría General de la República de Panamá, publica entre sus indicadores sociales la mediana de salarios mensuales según ocupación y sexo. Esta es una aproximación muy general de una Escala Salarial, pues no cuenta con detalles sobre la industria, la edad o la experiencia. A continuación un extracto del documento:

Referencia:

[1] Insituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo, Contraloría General de la República de Panamá (2013).  http://www.contraloria.gob.pa/inec/archivos/P5371012-86.pdf