Market watchers worldwide are all abuzz about the "globalization of the American economic model." By that they mean the rising contribution of the information-technology sector to economic growth, the soaring valuations of Internet-related stocks and the use of those shares to finance highly leveraged buyouts. It is becoming increasingly clear that this "Americanization" is a mixed blessing: The growth is welcome, the accompanying bubbles are not. Local variants of the phenomenon may compound the dangers.
Business spending on information technologies in the industrialized economies of the United States, Europe and Japan is growing about 12 percent a year, considerably faster than those economies as a whole. It is estimated that growth in the sector added about half a percentage point to Japan's overall GDP in 1999, and it is anticipated to reach over 1 percentage point soon. In Japan, the number of jobs in the IT sector grew about 2.4 percent a year from 1980 to 1997, while annual growth in the entire labor force was just 1.7 percent.
Bright prospects have spilled over into the markets. New York share prices have lured investors from around the world, but there is froth in other exchanges, too. By one estimate, the value of European Internet companies has jumped from $25 billion to $100 billion in the last six months. "New Japan" stocks are taking market indexes here to new heights, led by such companies as Softbank and Hikari Tsushin, which have marked triple-digit increases in value in the last few months alone.