摘要：The US has experienced a sustained increase in productivity growth since the
mid-1990s, particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies
(IT). This has not occurred in Europe. If the US “productivity miracle” is due
to a natural advantage of being located in the US then we would not expect to
see any evidence of it for US establishments located abroad. This paper shows in
fact that US multinationals operating in the UK do have higher productivity than
non-US multinationals in the UK, and this is primarily due to the higher
productivity of their IT. Furthermore, establishments that are taken over by US
multinationals increase the productivity of their IT, whereas observationally
identical establishments taken over by non-US multinationals do not. One
explanation for these patterns is that US firms are organized in a way that
allows them to use new technologies more efficiently. A model of endogenously
chosen organizational form and IT is developed to explain these new micro and
macro findings.
关键词：Productivity, Information Technology, multinationals, organization
