IP: DOES INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY?

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

DOES INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY?
Economics Nobel Prize laureate Robert M. Solow suggests that claims of
increased productivity from information technology are highly exaggerated:
"The hype about productivity has been much greater than the performance.
Maybe we have gotten so good at hype that the information revolution seems
bigger to us than the electric motor seemed when it was invented.  But the
electric motor had a big impact on how many shirts you could sew in a day."
(New York Times 12 May 96 Sec4 p1)