International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   Scholars have argued about the impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs) on the global political economy. The industries associated with these technologies have grown more rapidly in the past three decades, on the average, than other industries. As a result, some argued that their importance in the overall economy at both the national and global levels increased in recent decades. Rises and declines in the importance of specific industries are part and parcel of the approach to international relations taken by long-wave theorists. In contrast, many economists were skeptical about claims that newer industries were more important than older ones. In the United States, just such skepticism led to the “a computer chip is not a potato chip” debate. Economists, at first skeptical about the effect of ICTs on economic productivity, changed their views on this in the 1990s. A few argued that ICT industries were subject to virtuous circles of innovation and growth that created the basis for an economy immune from the up and down cycles of the past. During the so-called dot.com bubble of 1998–2001, a decline in the growth rates of ICT industries resulted in some scholars reminding the world that all industries are subject to economic cycles and that the ICT industries are not so different from other industries, but others argued instead that the ... log in or subscribe to read full text