试论IT产业在美国信息经济中的作用

The Functions of the IT Industry in the American Information Economy

IT产业指IT生产产业,它是专门为信息经济提供IT类资本品和消费品、横跨IT制造与服务的新兴产业,这是美国信息经济的核心产业和经济增长的“火车头”。IT产业对美国经济的拉动作用表现在:它使美国经济获得了全新的增长方式;美国计算机制造业的高劳动生产率促进了制造业劳动生产率的上升,进而提升了全社会的劳动生产率;IT产业的崛起和壮大成为“熨平”美国经济周期的重要原因。IT产业独特的发展趋势揭示了美国信息经济出现全新增长方式的科技和产业背景,它印证了“技术进步是形成经济转换格局的基本动力”这一结论。

The IT industry in this paper refers specifically to the IT-production industry, which provides IT capital products and consumer goods for the information economy. It stretches across both the IT manufacturing industry and the ser￣vice industry, and has become the key industry in the American information economy and the “locomotive” of econo￣mic growth. The strength of its pull in the American information economy is shown in the following: (1) the American economy has obtained a totally new way of growth; (2) the high productivity of the computer manufacturing industry has contributed to the increase in productivity of the U.S. manufacturing industry, and therefore has elevated the productivity of the whole society; (3) the rise and prosperity of the IT Industry has, in part, ironed out the U.S. economic cycle. The unique developmental trend of the IT industry has revealed the technological and industrial background behind the brand new way of growth of the American information economy, and therefore supports the argument that “technical progress has been the main driving force for economic transformation.”