This authoritative book presents a selection of the most important published articles and papers on the computing industry - an industry that after five decades of growth permeates virtually all areas of modern economic activity. Many economists believe the diffusion of computing has been a catalyst and a driver of economic growth. This has stimulated research into the microeconomic determinants and consequences of computing. This collection provides a state-of-the-art survey of advances in applied and empirical approaches to the industrial economics of computing. The first section of the book presents several distinct approaches to the measurement of frontier research in computing. The second section addresses the factors shaping the industrial structure for supplying computer goods and services. The third section focuses on the determinants of the adoption and diffusion of information technology. Shane Greenstein - a leading scholar in the field - has written a new and authoritative introduction which provides a comprehensive overview of the subject. This is an important feature of the volume which will be an essential reference source for both industrial and business economists concerned with the computing industry.

The seventeenth volume of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Innovation Policy and the Economy provides an accessible forum for bringing the work of leading academic researchers to an audience of policymakers and those interested in the interaction between public policy and innovation. In the first chapter, Joel Waldfogel discusses how reduced costs of production have resulted in a "Golden Age of Television," arguing that this development has gone underappreciated. The second chapter, by Marc Rysman and Scott Schuh, discusses the prospects for innovation in payment systems, including mobile payments, faster payment systems, and digital currencies. In the third chapter, Catherine Tucker and Amalia Miller analyze the consequences of patient data becoming virtually costless to store, share, and individualize, showing how data management and privacy issues have become a key factor in health policy. The fourth chapter, by Michael Luca, examines how online marketplaces have proliferated over the past decade, evolving far beyond the pioneers such as eBay and Amazon. In the fifth chapter, Tim Bresnahan and Pai-Ling Yin characterize information and communication technologies in the workplace, addressing how wages vary with increasing demand for smart managers and professionals, and workers with organizational participation skills.

The increasing creation, support, use and consumption of digital representation of information touches a wide breadth of economic activities. This digitization has transformed social interactions, facilitated entirely new industries and undermined others and reshaped the ability of people - consumers, job seekers, managers, government officials and citizens - to access and leverage information. This important book includes seminal papers addressing topics such as the causes and consequences of digitization, factors shaping the structure of products and services and creating an enormous range of new applications and how market participants make their choices over strategic organization, market conduct, and public policies. This authoritative collection, with an original introduction by the editors, will be an invaluable source of reference for students, academics and practitioners with an interest in the economics of digitisation and the digital economy.