The impact of ICT on economic growth of Greece and EU-28 under economic crisis

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are a key factor which affects economic development and business growth significantly. However the assessment of whether and how ICT contributes to economic growth in general is a challenging topic, especially during periods of economic crisis. The study presented hereafter, aims to investigate the contribution of ICT to the economic growth of Greece and the countries of the European Union (EU - 28) during the last 26 years (1990-2016) and especially during the economic crisis (2008 - 2016). By exploiting growth accounting methodology and the Cobb-Douglas production function, we obtain production functions of the Greek and European economies. The results show that during the economic crisis, the contribution of ICT capital has decreased, but ICT capital is the only production factor that has a positive impact on GDP growth. Thus, ICT has positively contributed to the economic development of Greece and can help the country overcome the crisis.