Update on Progress for the Past 2 weeks

For the past two weeks I have finalised all my results and been working on my final treatise copy. The results that I posted in my last post will be used in my final treatise. The justification for using the non-logged versions of KS/K, KH/K and KS/K1 can be found in the following paper:

• Lehr, B and Lichtenberg, F., "Information Technology and its impact on productivity: firm level evidence form government and private data sources, 1977-1993", The Canadian Journal of Economics, (1999)

In my last meeting with Dr.Poon we had started discussing on which angle to take in writing up the final copy of the treatise. He suggested that I take a highly exploratory tone in writing up my argument about the results I have found. To recap these results are:

• IT capital can't be aggreagted into Ordinary Capital K (K)


• Software Capital (SK) and Hardware Capital (HK) can't be aggregated into IT capital (K1)


• SK and HK don't have any short term intermediate impact i.e. it takes times for SK and HK to adjust for the effects of these to be felt


• HK and SK are complementary with each other


• SK and L are substitutes with each other


• HK and L are substitutes with each other

For my meeting this afternoon I have created an outline of all the sections including what will be written and what papers will be used for each chapter. Dr. Poon will then review the key points and papers which once approved I can write up the section in its entirety. The sections are as follows:

• Chapter 1: Introduction and Motivation


• Chapter 2: Literature Reivew


• Chapter 3: Methodology and Hypothesis


• Chapter 4: Data Construction


• Chpater 5: Results


• Chapter 6: Analysis and Interpretation


• Chpater 7: Conclusion

After my meeting today I will recount about the derlivarables on the coming week and mention any changes to the proposed structure. I have also been researching further items on two more concepts which are the emobdiment and disembodiment of IT and the General Purpose Technologuy (GPT) nature of IT. Both these concepts will be used in my motivation as well as be used in my analysis and discussion of results. I will provide the references to the resoue which I have used and found in my next post.