Economic contribution and integration of Croatian ICT sectors

Abstract

Despite the numerous benefits of information and communications technology (ICT) in promoting economic growth and sustainable development, its impacts are insufficiently researched. In particular, there have been few attempts to quantity the contribution of ICT sectors to national economies or the level of integration between ICT sectors. In this paper, an alternative model of sector extraction is developed to quantify the importance of ICT sectors in open and closed input--output systems. The proposed model calculates the contribution of ICT sectors to the national gross value added and employment, as well as the cross-sectoral and intra-sectoral deliveries between ICT sectors. The model is applied to study the Croatian ICT sectors in the years 2010 and 2020. The results indicate that the ICT manufacturing industries lag behind ICT service industries in Croatia. The level of integration differs between individual ICT sectors.