A Quantitative Analysis on the Impact of The Usage of Information Equipment in the Non-production Division

抄録

The aims of introducing information system into business are divided largely into the two. One is to reduce unwanted cost by improving efficiency, and the other is to create new value-added. The former is the supreme proposition the business community has been always working on, and IT has greatly contributed for that purpose. However, even if unwanted cost should be reduced to zero, the business could not survive if the products or services they offer are not sold. Therefore, it is the creation of new values that is required of the business now. And its success hugely depends on how effectively the non-production division of the business can make use of information equipment. The purpose of this paper is to carry out a quantitative analysis of the impact of IT investment at the level of industry-sector. The Information Equipment Ratio is defined as an index to show the Information and Communication-related Capital-labor ratio, and its impact on the amount of value-added per person (labor productivity) is analyzed and examined for each industry-sector by making use of methods of Growth Accounting and DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis). The results show that the contribution of information equipment in 1990-2002 declined compared to that of the second half of 1980, and that, in 1990-2002, a significant slack is seen in the Information Equipment Ratio and in the workers with an educational level higher than college. These fact findings strongly suggest that the non-production division of the Japanese business did not make an effective use of information equipment in this period.