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- Title
Comment (by David Brownstone).
- Authors
Brownstone, David; Flamm, Ken
- Abstract
This article comments on a paper by Timothy Bresnahan and Shane Greenstein on the technical progress and co-invention in computing and in the uses of computers. The interesting paper examines the diffusion of a new intermediate-good technology. The authors have constructed a dataset appropriate for modeling the adoption of client/server computing in place of mainframes for large enterprise-wide business systems such as accounting, payroll, inventory, and reservation systems. These data allow the authors to define a number of milestones along the conversion from mainframes to client/server for each establishment in their data. The time to reach each milestone is explained by a Weibull duration model. The appendix shows that the authors are careful to check the sensitivity of their specification against different baseline hazard functions and exogenous variables. The Weibull model is an accelerated failure time model, which means that any change in a regressor resulting in an increase in the level of the hazard function also causes the slope of the hazard function to increase. The authors' conclusion that co-invention is a key factor in explaining the variation in adoption times rests with the statistical and economic significance of the variables indicating a large proportion of communication and database software written internally by the enterprise.
- Subjects
MAINFRAME computers; COMPUTERS; CLIENT/SERVER computing; COMPUTER terminals; COMPUTER network architectures; ENTERPRISEWIDE computing
- Publication
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1996, p79
- ISSN
0007-2303
- Publication type
Article