Abstract:
This paper analyses the importance of the ICT sector, and in particular the Software sector, for the European economy. It does so by looking into the question of how value-added is created through the lens of improved productivityand competitiveness using ICT in various European economies. In analysing these channels of value-added, this paper looks specifically into how complementary policies play a crucial factor in the employment of software in order to enable a significant effect on economic growth. Examples of these complementary policies are various and vary from labour market regulations to product market regulations. As a result, this paper shows which of these additional policy measures can further benefit the European economy whilst employing software and other ICT-related services. In doing so, this paper has developed and used two research methodologies which are presented in the annex of the paper and of which only the results are shown in the main part of this work.