Estimating the Welfare Effects of Digital Infrastructure

While much economic policy presumes that more information infrastructure yields higher economic returns, little empirical work measures the magnitudes of these returns. We examine investment by local exchange telephone companies in fiber optic cable, ISDN lines and signal seven software, infrastructure which plays an essential role in bringing digital technology to local telephone networks. We estimate the elasticity of the derived demand for infrastructure investment faced by local exchange companies, controlling for factors such as local economic activity and the political disposition of state regulators. Our model postulates a regulated profit maximizing local exchange firm and a regulatory agency with predetermined political leanings in favor of consumer prices or firm profits. The model accounts for variation in state regulation and local economic conditions. In all our estimates we find that consumer demand is sensitive to investment in modern infrastructure, particularly as represented by fiber optic cable. Our estimates imply that infrastructure investment is responsible for a substantial fraction of the recent growth in consumer surplus and business revenue in local telecommunication services.

Furious Flowerings: Digital infrastructure

Presentation to JMU Libraries and Furious Flower Poetry Center

Energy Power, Digital Infrastructure and Elearning Platforms: Afrrican Experience.

Information and communication technologies are one of the most pervasive technologies in the world, second only to 'human intelligence' or the human brain. Thus, understanding the factors that determine the diffusion of new technologies across african countries is important to understanding the process of economic development. And whereas, energy is linked with the capacity to perform, the rate at which energy is consumed for the acceleration of the pace of socio-economic activities is regarded as power. Consequently, it will be obvious that the magnitude of the standard of living in any society; the growth and development of such an economy; and its ability to affect the course of events(such as ICT revolution)will be a function of the extent to which its energy(power) resources are developed and utilised. This paper therefore argued for the need to provide assistance in reducing vulnerability and building the capacity of african countries to more widely reap the benefits of the clean development mechanism in areas such as the development of cleaner and renewable energies. Inevitably, this is the critical condition for the sustainability of the emergent e-learning platforms and digital networks in africa.ICT, learning, elearning, development, energy, power, information, communication, solar, electricity, wind, governance, africa, electronics, telecommunications, internet, digital, satellite, renewable energy, gas turbine, power plants, bandwidth, coal, hydro, biomass, steam, transmission, distribution, utilisation

Managing digital coordination of design: emerging hybrid practices in an institutionalized project setting

What happens when digital coordination practices are introduced into the institutionalized setting of an engineering project? This question is addressed through an interpretive study that examines how a shared digital model becomes used in the late design stages of a major station refurbishment project. The paper contributes by mobilizing the idea of ‘hybrid practices’ to understand the diverse patterns of activity that emerge to manage digital coordination of design. It articulates how engineering and architecture professions develop different relationships with the shared model; the design team negotiates paper-based practices across organizational boundaries; and diverse practitioners probe the potential and limitations of the digital infrastructure. While different software packages and tools have become linked together into an integrated digital infrastructure, these emerging hybrid practices contrast with the interactions anticipated in practice and policy guidance and presenting new opportunities and challenges for managing project delivery. The study has implications for researchers working in the growing field of empirical work on engineering project organizations as it shows the importance of considering, and suggests new ways to theorise, the introduction of digital coordination practices into these institutionalized settings

Synergizing Roadway Infrastructure Investment with Digital Infrastructure for Infrastructure-Based Connected Vehicle Applications: Review of Current Status and Future Directions

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The safety, mobility, environmental and economic benefits of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are potentially dramatic. However, realization of these benefits largely hinges on the timely upgrading of the existing transportation system. CAVs must be enabled to send and receive data to and from other vehicles and drivers (V2V communication) and to and from infrastructure (V2I communication). Further, infrastructure and the transportation agencies that manage it must be able to collect, process, distribute and archive these data quickly, reliably, and securely. This paper focuses on current digital roadway infrastructure initiatives and highlights the importance of including digital infrastructure investment alongside more traditional infrastructure investment to keep up with the auto industry's push towards this real time communication and data processing capability. Agencies responsible for transportation infrastructure construction and management must collaborate, establishing national and international platforms to guide the planning, deployment and management of digital infrastructure in their jurisdictions. This will help create standardized interoperable national and international systems so that CAV technology is not deployed in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner

Coordination and control in project-based work: digital objects and infrastructures for delivery

A major infrastructure project is used to investigate the role of digital objects in the coordination of engineering design work. From a practice-based perspective, research emphasizes objects as important in enabling cooperative knowledge work and knowledge sharing. The term ‘boundary object’ has become used in the analysis of mutual and reciprocal knowledge sharing around physical and digital objects. The aim is to extend this work by analysing the introduction of an extranet into the public–private partnership project used to construct a new motorway. Multiple categories of digital objects are mobilized in coordination across heterogeneous, cross-organizational groups. The main findings are that digital objects provide mechanisms for accountability and control, as well as for mutual and reciprocal knowledge sharing; and that different types of objects are nested, forming a digital infrastructure for project delivery. Reconceptualizing boundary objects as a digital infrastructure for delivery has practical implications for management practices on large projects and for the use of digital tools, such as building information models, in construction. It provides a starting point for future research into the changing nature of digitally enabled coordination in project-based work

Digital infrastructure

Digitization not only has an impact on existing companies, but also offers new business opportunities for start-ups in particular: Sound business knowledge meets innovative business models, new technologies and diverse forms of teamwork. These digital entrepreneurs need not only technical know-how, but also leadership skills adapted to the challenges of a digitalized working world. More specifically, managers and entrepreneurs working in technology-oriented companies should be able to shape the entrepreneurial future and have the ability to act in the face of uncertainty, but also need to expand their management and leadership competencies with regard to the digital transformation of companies