Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orisre/v26y2015i3p480-495.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Research Commentary—Information Technology Substitution Revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Dawei Zhang

    (College of Business and Economics, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015)

  • Zhuo (June) Cheng

    (School of Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Business, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

  • Hasan A. Qurban H. Mohammad

    (College of Business Administration, Kuwait University, Safat 13055 Kuwait)

  • Barrie R. Nault

    (Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada)

Abstract
Taking advantage of the opportunities created by the price adjusted performance improvement in information technology (IT) depends in part on the ability of IT capital to substitute for other inputs in production. Studies in the information systems literature and most economics training examining the substitution of IT capital for other inputs use the Allen elasticity of substitution (AES). We present a less-well-known measure for the elasticity of substitution, the Morishima elasticity of substitution (MES). In contrast to the AES, which is misleading when there are three or more inputs—such as non-IT capital, labor, and IT capital—the MES provides a substitution measure where the scale is meaningful, and the measure differs depending on which price is changing. This is particularly important for IT capital, because prices have been declining, and there is evidence that IT capital can substitute for non-IT capital or labor in a qualitatively different way than non-IT capital and labor substitute for each other. Methodologically, we also show the impact of imposing local regularity—for example, monotonicity of output from increases in inputs—which we do through Bayesian methods employed to estimate the underlying functions that are used to calculate various measures of substitution. We demonstrate the importance of the MES as an underrecognized measure of substitution and the impact of imposing local regularity using an economy-wide industry-level data set covering 1998–2009 at the three-digit North American Industry Classification System code level. Our MES results show that reductions in the price of IT capital increase the quantity of IT capital in use, but are unlikely to change the input share of IT capital—the value of IT capital as a proportion of the value of all inputs—in contrast to major studies using the AES. In addition, estimates for both elasticities of substitution are more stable after imposing local regularity. Both of these advances—that is, the MES and imposing local regularity—have the potential to impact future work on IT productivity, IT pricing, IT cost estimation, and any type of analysis that posits the substitution of IT capital for non-IT capital or labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Dawei Zhang & Zhuo (June) Cheng & Hasan A. Qurban H. Mohammad & Barrie R. Nault, 2015. "Research Commentary—Information Technology Substitution Revisited," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 480-495, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:26:y:2015:i:3:p:480-495
    DOI: 10.1287/isre.2015.0570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2015.0570
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/isre.2015.0570?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Barnett & Meenakshi Pasupathy, 2003. "Regularity of the Generalized Quadratic Production Model: A Counterexample," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 135-154.
    2. Charles Blackorby & R. Robert Russell, 1981. "The Morishima Elasticity of Substitution; Symmetry, Constancy, Separability, and its Relationship to the Hicks and Allen Elasticities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(1), pages 147-158.
    3. Ryan, David L & Wales, Terence J, 1998. "A Simple Method for Imposing Local Curvature in Some Flexible Consumer-Demand Systems," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(3), pages 331-338, July.
    4. William D. Nordhaus, 2002. "Productivity Growth and the New Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(2), pages 211-265.
    5. Amado, Cristina & Teräsvirta, Timo, 2013. "Modelling volatility by variance decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 175(2), pages 142-153.
    6. Blackorby, Charles & Russell, R Robert, 1989. "Will the Real Elasticity of Substitution Please Stand Up? (A Comparison of the Allen/Uzawa and Morishima Elasticities)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 882-888, September.
    7. Terrell, Dek, 1996. "Incorporating Monotonicity and Concavity Conditions in Flexible Functional Forms," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(2), pages 179-194, March-Apr.
    8. Chambers,Robert G., 1988. "Applied Production Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521314275, October.
    9. Stephan Kudyba & Romesh Diwan, 2002. "Research Report: Increasing Returns to Information Technology," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(1), pages 104-111, March.
    10. O'Donnell, Christopher J. & Coelli, Timothy J., 2005. "A Bayesian approach to imposing curvature on distance functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 493-523, June.
    11. Fuss, Melvyn & McFadden, Daniel (ed.), 1978. "Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780444850133.
    12. Hyunbae Chun & Sung-Bae Mun, 2006. "Substitutability and Accumulation of Information Technology Capital in U.S. Industries," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 1002-1015, April.
    13. Kjell Salvanes & Sigve Tjøtta, 1998. "A Note on the Importance of Testing for Regularities for Estimated Flexible Functional Forms," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 133-143, March.
    14. Fuss, Melvyn & McFadden, Daniel, 1978. "Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications (I): The Theory of Production," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 1, number fuss1978.
    15. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2003. "Computing Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 793-808, November.
    16. William A. Barnett, 2004. "Tastes and Technology: Curvature Is Not Sufficient for Regularity," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Functional Structure and Approximation in Econometrics, pages 429-433, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    17. Sanjeev Dewan & Chung-ki Min, 1997. "The Substitution of Information Technology for Other Factors of Production: A Firm Level Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(12), pages 1660-1675, December.
    18. Fuss, Melvyn & McFadden, Daniel, 1978. "Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications (II): Applications of the Theory of Production," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 2, number fuss1978a.
    19. Moschini, Giancarlo, 1999. "Imposing Local Curvature Conditions in Flexible Demand Systems," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(4), pages 487-490, October.
    20. Edward R. Morey, 1986. "An Introduction to Checking, Testing, and Imposing Curvature Properties: The True Function and the Estimated Function," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 19(2), pages 207-235, May.
    21. Prasanna Tambe & Lorin M. Hitt, 2014. "Job Hopping, Information Technology Spillovers, and Productivity Growth," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(2), pages 338-355, February.
    22. Neeraj Mittal & Barrie R. Nault, 2009. "Research Note ---Investments in Information Technology: Indirect Effects and Information Technology Intensity," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 140-154, March.
    23. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2000. "Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 23-48, Fall.
    24. Zhuo (June) Cheng & Barrie R. Nault, 2007. "Industry Level Supplier-Driven IT Spillovers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(8), pages 1199-1216, August.
    25. Timothy J. Coelli & D.S. Prasada Rao & Christopher J. O’Donnell & George E. Battese, 2005. "An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-0-387-25895-9, January.
    26. Hirofumi Uzawa, 1962. "Production Functions with Constant Elasticities of Substitution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(4), pages 291-299.
    27. Song, Peter X.K. & Fan, Yanqin & Kalbfleisch, John D., 2005. "Maximization by Parts in Likelihood Inference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 1145-1158, December.
    28. Paul Chwelos & Ronald Ramirez & Kenneth L. Kraemer & Nigel P. Melville, 2010. "Research Note ---Does Technological Progress Alter the Nature of Information Technology as a Production Input? New Evidence and New Results," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 392-408, June.
    29. Pollak, Robert A & Sickles, Robin C & Wales, Terence J, 1984. "The CES-Translog: Specification and Estimation of a New Cost Function," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(4), pages 602-607, November.
    30. Zhuo (June) Cheng & Barrie R. Nault, 2012. "Relative Industry Concentration and Customer-Driven IT Spillovers," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 340-355, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dandan Qiao & Huaxia Rui & Qian Xiong, 2023. "AI and Jobs: Has the Inflection Point Arrived? Evidence from an Online Labor Platform," Papers 2312.04180, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    2. JosephNg, P.S., 2018. "EaaS Optimization: Available yet hidden information technology infrastructure inside medium size enterprise," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 165-173.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Consumer preferences and demand systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 210-224, December.
    2. Hendrik Wolff & Thomas Heckelei & Ron Mittelhammer, 2010. "Imposing Curvature and Monotonicity on Flexible Functional Forms: An Efficient Regional Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 309-339, December.
    3. Sauer, J.F., 2005. "“Efficiency Flooding”: Black-Box Frontiers and Policy Implications," International Journal of Applied Econometrics and Quantitative Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 2(1), pages 17-52.
    4. Jakir Hussain & Jean-Thomas Bernard, 2016. "Flexible Functional Forms and Curvature Conditions: Parametric Productivity Estimation in Canadian and U.S. Manufacturing Industries," Working Papers 1612e, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    5. Johannes Sauer & Klaus Frohberg & Henrich Hockmann, 2006. "Stochastic efficiency measurement: The curse of theoretical consistency," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 9, pages 139-166, May.
    6. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Measuring Consumer Preferences and Estimating Demand Systems," MPRA Paper 12318, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Sauer, Johannes, 2006. "Monotonicity And Curvature - A Bootstrapping Approach," 46th Annual Conference, Giessen, Germany, October 4-6, 2006 14948, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    8. Guy Chapda Nana & Bruno Larue, 2014. "Imposing curvature conditions on flexible functional forms for GNP functions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1411-1440, December.
    9. David Stern, 2011. "Elasticities of substitution and complementarity," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 79-89, August.
    10. Chapda Nana, Guy & Larue, Bruno, 2012. "Imposing Curvature Conditions on Flexible Functional Forms to GNP Functions," Working Papers 123308, University of Laval, Center for Research on the Economics of the Environment, Agri-food, Transports and Energy (CREATE).
    11. Atanas Christev & Allen Featherstone, 2009. "A note on Allen-Uzawa partial elasticities of substitution: the case of the translog cost function," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(11), pages 1165-1169.
    12. Sauer, J., 2007. "Monotonicity and Curvature – A Bootstrapping Approach," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 42, March.
    13. Prasanna Tambe, 2014. "Big Data Investment, Skills, and Firm Value," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1452-1469, June.
    14. Levent Kutlu & Shasha Liu & Robin C. Sickles, 2022. "Cost, Revenue, and Profit Function Estimates," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 16, pages 641-679, Springer.
    15. William A. Barnett & Ikuyasu Usui, 2007. "The Theoretical Regularity Properties of the Normalized Quadratic Consumer Demand Model," International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics, in: Functional Structure Inference, pages 107-127, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    16. Feng, Guohua & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Productivity trends in U.S. manufacturing: Evidence from the NQ and AIM cost functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 281-311, January.
    17. Eric Heyer & Florian Pelgrin & Arnaud Sylvain, 2004. "Translog ou Cobb-Douglas? Le rôle des durées d'utilisation des facteurs," Staff Working Papers 04-19, Bank of Canada.
    18. Perekhozhuk, Oleksandr, 2007. "Marktstruktur und Preisbildung auf dem ukrainischen Markt für Rohmilch," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 41, number 92322.
    19. Paul Chwelos & Ronald Ramirez & Kenneth L. Kraemer & Nigel P. Melville, 2010. "Research Note ---Does Technological Progress Alter the Nature of Information Technology as a Production Input? New Evidence and New Results," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 392-408, June.
    20. Dennis O. Kundisch & Neeraj Mittal & Barrie R. Nault, 2014. "Research Commentary —Using Income Accounting as the Theoretical Basis for Measuring IT Productivity," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 449-467, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:26:y:2015:i:3:p:480-495. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.