The Digital Economy and the Productivity Paradox

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-11906-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 214 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in the Economics of Innovation

Despite billions of dollars invested in digitalisation, productivity growth in developed economies remains sluggish and the promised technological revolution has yet to deliver its full potential. This concise book questions why digitalisation is not translating into higher productivity and economic expansion, exploring this paradox through the lens of Schumpeter's creative destruction hypothesis.

The book diagnoses and analyses the digital economy as the next stage of socio-economic evolution, with a particular focus on the penetration of digital technologies in the industrial economy. It is geographically limited to the countries of the European Union and the United Kingdom, forming a set of 28 highly developed economies. These countries, characterised by a homogeneous institutional order and varying levels of economic development provide excellent material for testing and verifying economic hypotheses, including Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction. Confronting Schumpeter's theory, there is indeed an observed development of a new sector around a technology that is a radical innovation - the Internet - and the development of technologies based on it, AI, blockchain, cloud computing, etc. However, the rate of technical progress is reaching values close to zero, despite the fact that creative destruction should manifest itself in leaps in productivity. The second point of contention with Schumpeter's theory is the question of oligopolies, which should be the environment most conducive to innovation. However, in the case of the digital economy, productivity growth is most strongly influenced by small and micro-enterprises, which may point to different factors of production than in previous industrial revolutions.

This is a practical guide for researchers and advanced students of economics.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wlodarczyk, Michal

Wisla, Rafal

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Makroökonomie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Entwicklungsökonomie & Emerging Markets
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Ökonometrie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Nachhaltigkeit

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. The Digital Economy – Concept and Distinguishing Features 2. Schumpeterian Theory of Economic Development 3. Dimensions of the Digital Economy 4. The Problem of Measuring the Development of the Digital Economy 5. Explanatory Characteristics of the Digital Economy of EU Countries 6. Level of Digital Saturation of EU Economies – Presentation of Results

Über Autor(innen)

Michal Wlodarczyk is Assistant Professor at the Department of Risk Management and Insurance at Cracow University of Economics, Krakow, Poland.

Rafal Wisla is Associate Professor in Economics at the Department of Economics and Innovation of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.