The information and communication sector consists in the ISIC Revision 4 classification that OECD STAN uses of publishing, motion picture, video and television programme production, sound recording and music publishing activities, programming and broadcasting activities, telecommunications, computer programming, consultancy and related activities, information service activities. These are all sectors where computing, media, and information processing play a role. The growth of information storage capacity per integrated circuit with falling costs (Moore’s Law), the growth of data transmission speed, and the possibility for mediation, digitisation, computerisation of outputs and labour activities can increase productivity in many of these sub-industries.
The arts, entertainment, and recreation sector consists in the ISIC Revision 4 classification of art, live entertainment and performance, libraries, archives, museums, gambling and betting activities, sports, and amusement. It is rather difficult to increase productivity in arts, live entertainment and in contrast easier in publishing, audiovisual, and broadcast media, telecommunications, IT. Live entertainment such as the operation of theatres, concert halls, museums, archives, libraries, exhibition sites, gambling and betting, sports clubs and facilities, sports events, amusement and team parks, discotheques and clubs include consumption at the moment of production, human copresence, non-storage, and non-reproducibility. Such culture is just like art production that is also included in this sector based on highly original creativity. These characteristics make Baumol’s disease – the assumption that it is difficult to increase productivity in the arts (Baumol and Bowen 1965) – more likely in this sector than in other information industries. Live events can certainly be recorded and then sold as commodities, but such activities then belong to and statistically enter the publishing, audiovisual and broadcast media sector.
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