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Article: The diffusion of personal computers across the U.S.
- Article from:
- FRBSF Economic Letter
- Article date:
- December 23, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For the last fifteen years or so, information technology (IT) has become an ever more important part of the U.S. economy. Looking back over the period, there can be little doubt that the growing use of IT contributed significantly to the economy's performance, especially in the latter half of the 1990s, when output grew rapidly, unemployment declined to 25-year lows, productivity surged, and the inflation rate actually fell.
A key question about IT's role in this performance is how its use spreads or diffuses throughout the economy. This Economic Letter focuses on a particular part of this question, namely, the diffusion of the personal computer across U.S. ...