70 likes | 162 Views
Agenda item 9. Thoughts on the e-commerce chapter. By Marshall Reinsdorf for presentation at the UNECE Group of Experts on National Accounts April 28, 2010. Definition Question. Definition of e-commerce is unsettled:
E N D
Agenda item 9 Thoughts on the e-commerce chapter By Marshall Reinsdorf for presentation at the UNECE Group of Experts on National Accounts April 28, 2010
Definition Question • Definition of e-commerce is unsettled: • Delivered to customer’s computer over a wire, or justordered using a computer or customized ordering software over a wire? • What about just delivered over a wire, e.g. online advertising? • Just over internet, or over any kind of network? • Can be classified into B-to-B, B-to-C, and C-to-C. • Estimates vary a lot depending on definition chosen by researcher.
Economic Rationale • Lower transactions cost. • Increased competition (all the gains may go to consumers). • Allows reorganization/rationalization of the production process.
Data Challenges • Underestimation of trade flows likely worsened by growth of small-valued transactions and by appearance of new kinds of trade in services. • We may not be surveying the right firms or asking the right questions of those we do survey (or of surveyed households). • Measures of retail expenditures may include exports or miss imports. (Note that unmeasured consumption and imports of online music do NOT distort measurement of GDP.) • Scope of CPI price surveys and outlet substitution bias. • How to measure/handle C-to-C commerce.
Observations about Definition Question • What types of questions are various definitions best suited for? • Advantages/disadvantages of broad and narrow approaches? • More explicit discussion of international vs domestic e-commerce would be helpful: hard to know when the topic is just trade. • Greatest interest is in e-delivery definition and newly tradable services. • Include advice about survey design (e.g. respondents may report communications service as trade in deliverables, or vice versa.) • Reminders of applicable general principles of measurement of trade in services need more prominence.
Observation about Economic Rationale • Increased range of varieties available for final (or intermediate) consumption is another critical benefit. • Reorganization of production often takes a long time to fully play out. Includes growth of within-firm specialization or centralization, increased outsourcing/offshoring of some kinds of activities, better supply chain/inventory management, and fragmentation of the production process. • What are implications of this for measuring economic growth or productivity growth? • Possible effects of new kinds of trade in services on employment: how many jobs are offshorable?
Observations about Measurement Challenges • Need to consider how to change surveys, questions and data collection methods to capture small value transactions and new kinds of transactions. • Are our classification systems flexible enough and completeenough to keep up with new kinds of trade made possible by e-commerce? • Do profits on C-to-C commerce belong in GDP/GDI? • Inclusion of C-to-C imports in consumption, and C-to-C exports in change-in-inventories.