Economic Aspects of Digital Information Technologies

The rapid development of information and communication technologies has been one of the major issues in the world economy of the last decade. Especially, the fast growth of the Internet has introduced completely new economic and related issues, like world-wide Electronic Commerce and its taxing, telework activities, distance learning, and so on. It has become possible to split organizations into small units which may form an electronically connected network taking new shapes in a flexible way. Since the growth of the Internet has been fast and fairly uncontrolled, a strong need for new laws, sometimes called Cyberlaw, has emerged. On the other hand, the individual skills of information technologies may be of critical importance to the success of a person in his or her professional career. This book discusses several new aspects and economic impacts of digital information technologies. A primer on Internet economics provides an introduction to the structure of the Internet and its economic issues. Further related subjects are taxing of the world-wide Electronic Commerce, Cyberlaw, learning with hypermedia, and distance learning over the network. We also discuss the general impact of information technologies on innovation dynamics, labor demand, and human capital depreciation. Results of a recent survey on European telework activities give insight into rapid organizational changes due to the digitalization of economies. General information technology related aspects, like the need of a rapid transfer of new economic knowledge and semantic integration of online information, are provided.