Investment climate; infrastructure international comparison 1990-2012

Table explanation

Description topics

ICT infrastructure expenses

ICT infrastructure is the whole of supplies necessary for data transport: cable networks, present ICT techniques for data transport and ICT equipment. In addition, services concerning electronic networks belong to ICT infrastructure, such as high-quality broadband connections which enable organisations to gather information, to communicate and to make transactions in a safe and efficient manner by electronic means.
ICT expenditure also belong to ICT infrastructure.

ICT expenditure

Investments, intermediate use and consumption of ICT goods (hardware and software) and ICT services.
Sources: Eurostat, Structural Indicators.

IT expenditure

Investments, intermediate use and consumption of information technology (IT). IT can be divided into goods (such as software and hardware) and services (such as computer services).
Source: Eurostat, Structural Indicators.

Telecommunication expenditure

Investments, intermediate use and consumption of communication technology (such as mobile telephone and internet).
Source: Eurostat, Structural Indicators.

Knowledge infrastructure

Knowledge infrastructure are the 'soft infrastructures', such as education and research infrastructures, aimed at the creation of educated people ('embodied knowledge') and new (scientific) insights ('disembodied knowledge').

Public R&D expenditure

Government financed gross domestic expenditure on Research & Development. Gross means that depreciations have not been deducted from the expenditure.
Characteristic of R&D is that the research is aimed at originality and renewal. R&D is the creative, systematic search for solutions for practical problems. Also the strategic and fundamental research, where obtaining background knowledge and increasing (purely) scientific knowledge stands first and not the striving towards direct economic advantage or solving problems, belongs to R&D. Furthermore, the development from ideas or prototypes to useful processes and production-ripe products is part of R&D.
The following activities are NOT counted as R&D:
- collecting and examining data, performing measurements or executing controls in a routine manner;
- the use or marginal improvement of existing methods or models for for example market research or social-demographic questions;
- education and training;
- activities concerning patents and licences;
- making purchased technology or sophisticated productions equipment operational;
- rewriting existing software and/or customising software already brought on the market;
- industrial design, unless ergonomic improvements are systematically sought.
The definition of R&D described above is in accordance with the internationally accepted standard for statistics concerning R&D such as described in the Frascati Manual (OECD, 2002).

Source: OECD, Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI).

Notes:
Czech Republic: 1991-1997: data are underestimated. 1991-1994 excluding defence expenditure.
Hungary: excluding defence expenditure.
Japan 1990-1995: data are overestimated.
Poland 1994: excluding defence expenditure.
South Korea: excluding R&D in social sciences, humanities and classical languages.
United States: excluding capital expenditure.

Educational expenditure per student

Expenditure on public and private education institutes, per pupil/student (in fulltime equivalents). It concerns both public (government) expenditure, and expenditure by private organisations or individuals.
Please note: it concerns both expenditure directly to educational institutions, and expenditure to individuals, who then pay (a part of) the money to an educational institution. In the case of a study grant to a student, the part of the grant used by the student to pay tuition, is counted in this indicator. The part of the grant used by the student to pay the rent is not counted in this indicator.

Source: OECD, Education at a glance.

Note: The OECD figure presented is the weighted average within the OECD countries (the sum of all expenditure in all countries has been divided by the sum of the number of pupils and students in all countries). When no data are available for one or some OECD countries the average has been calculated using the available countries.
2005: Canada, Hungary, Italy and Poland only public institutions.
2003 and 2004: Hungary, Italy and Poland only public institutions.
2002: Canada, Hungary and Italy only public institutions.
2000 and 2001: Hungary, Italy and Poland only public institutions.
United States only public and independent private institutions.
1999: Hungary, Italy and Poland only public institutions. United States only public and independent private institutions. The Netherlands only public and government dependent private institutions.
1998: Italy and Austria only public institutions. Belgium and the United Kingdom only public and government dependent private institutions.
1997: Hungary, Italy and Austria only public institutions. Belgium and the United Kingdom only public and government dependent private institutions.
The figure for Belgium is only referring to Flanders.

Primary education

Expenditure on public and private educational institutes, per pupil in primary education (ISCED97 level 1: primary education).
The expenditure is expressed in US dollars and corrected for differences in purchasing power between countries using Purchasing Power Parities
(PPP).

Secondary education

Expenditure on public and private educational institutes, per pupil in secondary education (ISCED97 levels 2 and 3).
ISCED97, level 2 is lower secondary education.
ISCED97, level 3 is upper secondary education.
The expenditure is expressed in US dollars and corrected for differences in purchasing power between countries using Purchasing Power Parities
(PPP).