Ekonomiści nadal nie są zgodni co do roli, jaką odegrał, bądź jeszcze odegra, układ scalony.

In the past 25 years, the microchip has given us pocket calculators, video recorders, microwave ovens, hand-held TVs, personal computers and even singing birthday cards. But how much has the chip contributed to economic performance? At first sight, not very much.

Productivity growth in the seven big industrialized economies has actually slowed from an average of 3.3 per cent per year between 1960 and 1973 to just 0.8 per cent since 1973. Says Nobel Prize-winning US economist Robert Solow: "You can see computers everywhere but in the productivity statistics."

Solow’s pessimism is shared by Paul Krugman of Stanford University. "We talk about the move to an information economy, but in fact, information is not the ultimate economic goal. People want bigger houses, nicer cars, better food. They don’t want a string of ones and zeros."

So is rising spending on computers a waste of money? Have diminishing returns set in? Paul David of Stanford and Oxford Universities does not think so. Hę has shown how it took 40 years before significant productivity gains began to be felt in America after the introduction, in the early 1880s, of the electric dynamo, which opened the way for the commercial use of electricity.

An alternative view is that the productivity gains from microchips are already here, but are often underestimated in standard economic statistics that do not adjust output figures correctly to take account of quality improvements. Similarly, there is no reason why the development of a new technology should raise productivity on average. It is more important to look at the winners that come out of this new technology. In the US, average male incomes have risen by about 6 per cent in real terms since 1990; in contrast, those of computer professionals have risen by as much as 13 per cent.

Danny Quah from the London School of Economies also takes issue with Paul Krugman’s criticism that one cannot eat bytes of computer memory. "We also cannot eat steel, coal or iron, but for decades the sign of a strong economy was being able to produce them. They were seen as a way to make life better, and there’s no question that for a while they did. We will see the same thing happen with the ones and zeros that Krusman is so dismissive of."

• to contribute - mieć swój wkład
• diminishing returns - malejące zyski, wpływy
• to underestimate - nie docenić
• to adjust - dostosować, korygować
• to take issue with sb - nie zgodzić się z kimś
• to be dismissive of sth - z łatwością odrzucać, bagatelizować