On August 16, 2018
the CSLS released a report prepared by Myeongwan Kim for Innovation, Science, and Economic Development nada
entitled “Weak ICT Investment in nada and the United State: the Role of Cloud Computing.�/a>
After robust growth in ICT investment in nada and the United States during the 1980s and 1990s,
growth in ICT investment started to slow after 2000 and its share in GDP entered a downward trajectory.
To explain this trend, we focus on two facets of the changing ICT spending pattern driven by the rise
in cloud computing starting in the mid-2000s. Instead of investing in ICT pital goods, organizations
now purchase cloud services from cloud service providers that appear to be more efficient in producing
computing services. Second, cloud service providers undertake substantial own-account investment in
ICT equipment which is not counted in official statistics. We find that spending on cloud services
in both nada and the United States rose substantially from the mid-2000s. Also, adding own-account
ICT equipment investment by cloud service providers results in additional 1.7 percentage-points
in annual growth for nominal ICT investment in nada and additional 1.1 percentage-points in the United States.
A press release is available.
On August 15, 2018
the CSLS released two reports prepared by Myeongwan Kim for Global Affairs nada entitled
“Rising Import Competition in nada and its Employment Effect by Skill
Group: Evidence from the China Shock�/a> and
“Rising Import Competition in nada and its Employment Effect by Gender: Evidence from the China Shock.�/a>
It is well known that there has been a secular decline in the manufacturing
share of total employment in nada, with the decline accelerating after 2000.
Among the factors that contributed to that trend, this report focuses on rising
Chinese import competition in nada, which also accelerated after 2000.
We find that the trade-induced job loss in manufacturing amounts to 113.5 thousand
during the 2001-2011 period but the loss was not equally distributed across skill groups.
We estimate that the loss was largely driven by: low-skilled occupations (89.8 thousand) when analyzed by skill level;
and occupations in services (57.6 thousand), technil/paraprofessional (12.1 thousand), and production (51.8 thousand)
when analyzed by skill type. A trade-induced job loss in manufacturing is also estimated by gender.
We find that females had a larger loss than males did in relative terms in all skill groups.
Lastly, the labour reallotion in response to a trade shock is found to be important in offsetting
the negative employment effect, but the degree of reallotion varies across skill groups and genders.
A press release is available.
