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Enterprise e-commerce; measurement and impact. UNCTAD 2003. Evidence and lessons from the UK. Tony Clayton ONS 2003. Key messages. UNCTAD 2003. UK measurement of enterprise e-commerce started out with a simple objective - to measure the scale of what’s happening
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Enterprise e-commerce; measurement and impact UNCTAD 2003 Evidence and lessons from the UK Tony Clayton ONS 2003
Key messages UNCTAD 2003 • UK measurement of enterprise e-commerce started out with a simple objective - to measure the scale of what’s happening • User needs for measurement quickly moved beyond ‘how big is it?’ to focus on how ICT changes behaviour, and policy • Complexity and rapid change in this area has made measurement difficult => ‘Keep the survey simple!’ • Evidence shows how use of electronic networks is associated with productivity gains … not always as policymakers expect • We can also identify some effects of electronic networks on market and price behaviour, and therefore on welfare.
UNCTAD 2003 • annual enterprise e-commerce survey, on ICT use across all firm sizes, and the use of electronic transactions and e-business processes • quarterly household surveys on internet access and use for various purposes, on attitudes, and expenditure • monthly survey of Internet Service Providers which tracks the growth in internet accounts • quarterly and annual surveys of investment at firm level, including investment in ICT hardware and software. Main UK surveys on ICT and e-commerce
UNCTAD 2003 • Focus on ICT investment and intermediate expenditure and its effects on business behaviour and performance • International growth accounting approaches use ‘ICT investment’ as the determining input • Issues of measurement; including price of capital stock, asset life, capturing software investment • Growth and productivity results for UK / Germany / France rather different from US Macro-economic approach to ICT Impact
UNCTAD 2003 • Able to examine firm behaviour, not just inputs • Test models against the wide range of firm experience, success and failure, rather than sector aggregates • Survey data available for the work reported here: • Structural Business Survey (ABI) • e-Commerce Survey • Community Innovation Survey • Producer Price surveys Micro approach - advantages
UNCTAD 2003 • Adoption of new business processes takes time, from investment to behaviour change • e-Commerce in UK is even now dominated by closed systems used by larger firms • High level of ‘churn’ in electronic markets • Large - but declining - number of ‘marginal’ internet traders Findings from the UK e-commerce survey
UNCTAD 2003 Entry and exit in e-markets is high
UNCTAD 2003 E-Commerce sales via internet and other networks (2001)
UNCTAD 2003 • Rapid change makes it difficult to reconcile year to year results • Focus on behaviour, rather than technology questions • technology goes out of date • respondents can tell you what they do, not technical details • Simple survey questions give more reliable answers • Pilot test everything you can, and validate extensively What we’ve learned on surveys
UNCTAD 2003 • US 1999 Computer Network Use Supplement, linked to Census • ‘Yes / no’ data on a wide range of network applications • 38,000 firm observations (plant level) • Evidence for 5% positive labour productivity effect across all network application / sectors (Atrostic & Nguyen 2002) • Tested for selection bias and model specification US work on productivity and electronic networks
UNCTAD 2003 Nearest UK equivalent in ABI (2000 onwards)
UNCTAD 2003 e-Procurement associated with higher nominal productivity (manufacturing sectors only)
UNCTAD 2003 Similar effects across most manufacturing sectors
UNCTAD 2003 • Linking between overlapping surveys is hard • partly because of high level of experimentation and change • wide range of behaviour patterns among smaller enterprises • high rates of error on technical questions • and then there are sampling differences between surveys • Adding qualitative questions to ‘structural’ surveys is easier, even if it limits the range of issues you can tackle • simple questions get more consistent answers • bigger surveys get over the error and uncertainty problems • better chance of picking up differences in different markets • no problem with sampling differences What we’ve learned about measuring impact
UNCTAD 2003 • Effects in EU case studies • depends on ‘balance of power’ • supply chain management usually benefits buyer • Effects from the literature • simple products, commodity effect • expanded supply, lower search costs, more competition • closed supply systems, dominant customers • added value services, potential for customising • cutting out step in distribution chain What effects are due to pricing?
UNCTAD 2003 Classic ‘buyer advantage’?
UNCTAD 2003 Changing competitive framework?
UNCTAD 2003 Single pricing regime
UNCTAD 2003 • Need to be aware that measurement must address distribution as well as efficiency issues • behaviour as important as economic variables • look for ways to detect ‘winners and losers’ • Tackling different sectors and sizes is worth the effort • needs bigger surveys, even on simple questions • economic effects are highly market specific, so simple ‘one size fits all’ economic models are likely to fail What we’ve learned about market impact
UNCTAD 2003 • On productivity analysis • improve quality of e-commerce identifiers (for market effects) • develop data on e-business processes (for efficiency effects) • develop approach for services • develop ICT capital at firm level, to separate investment infrastructure from behaviour • On pricing • extend to all manufacturing sectors, but problem with services • can we develop framework to characterise price effects? Comments or questions to tony.clayton@ons.gov.uk Future Steps