Concluding Remarks

Information and communication technologies and global networks are gradually but profoundly changing the way mature economies operate. Their widespread diffusion is affecting productivity and growth at firm, sectoral, and economy-wide levels, and the capacity of economies to create jobs and generate prosperity. In the process, they are also influencing the toolkit of policy-makers. Macroeconomic policy is influenced through the impact of ICTs and electronic commerce on a government's ability to exercise fiscal and monetary policies. The major impact of ICTs is however on structural policy: competition policy, policies that create framework conditions for entrepreneurship and business, employment and social cohesion policies are all evolving in response to the new economic and social environment that is taking shape in the Digital Era.