經(jīng)濟 外文翻譯 外文文獻 英文文獻 軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)和印度的經(jīng)濟發(fā)展

1、外文翻譯之二the software industry and indias economic developmentasish arora suma athreyeamerican indianinformation economics and policy, vol.1(2001)4. the growth of software and human capital formation: public and private investments in training and the rewards to an engineering educationthough india has

2、 one of the largest numbers of scientists and engineers it also has some of the lowest rates of literacy in the world with 52% of the total working population that cannot read or write. as table 3 showed, despite the large total numbers of engineers, the numbers of engineers per million of populatio

3、n was smaller in india compared to several other countries. there is correspondingly an over-reliance on the existing stock of trained but underemployed engineers, for whose services a slowly growing and protected economy could not generate adequate demand.a very large fraction of the employees of i

4、ndian software firms are graduates of engineering college. most of the indian software firms interviewed by arora et al. (2000) reported hiring only engineers. data from a sample of nearly 60 software firms indicates that over 80% of their employees had an engineering degree. only 13% were non-engin

5、eers trained in software development.14 in interviews, many firms categorically stated that they hired only engineers.this preference for engineers was unremarkable, and of little consequence, at the start of the industry, when its demand was small relative to the annual supply. india graduates over

6、 160,000 engineers of all varieties. the sharp and sustained growth of the indian industry has meant that by 1998-99, the number of employees has climbed to nearly 250,000, and estimates suggest that this may have crossed 400,000 in 2000-2001. if the industry continued to grow at 50% per year, then

7、even allowing for increases in productivity, it appears that the software industry is going to run out of engineers to hire. (see arora, asundi and fernandes, 2000 for more details.)these projections are consistent with other evidence. wages in the software industry have grown at over 20% per annum

8、and attrition rates are high. when asked in 1998-99 to list the top 3 problems they faced, more than half of all firms (out of a sample of over 100 firms) irrespective of age, size or market orientations (either export or import) selected manpower shortage and employee attrition as the most serious

9、problem affecting them (arora, et. al, 2000). despite paying substantially above indian standards, virtually all firms find it difficult to attract and retain talented software developers.the public policy response has been to emphasize increased investments in engineering colleges, increased emphas

10、is on information technology in engineering curricula and the creation of institutes of information technology (iiit) along the lines of the better known indian institutes of technology. though superficially reasonable, this is not the answer. these investments are unlikely to have a significant aff

11、ect on supply in the short run. moreover, expanding such capacity faces the problem that the growth of the software industry has tended to siphon off engineering masters and phd students. a recent report on graduate engineering education in india noted that the number of engineering phds produced ha

12、s fallen from 675 in 1987 to 375 in1995. concurrently, the number of engineers with postgraduate training has also risen only slowly, from a little over 12,000 in 1987-89 to a little over 17,000 in 1990-92. surveys of indias premier technological institutions-the indian institutes of technology (iit

13、s) show that a very large fraction of postgraduates from those institutions enter the information technology (it) sector, in some cases as many as 90%!moreover, table 6 below shows that the bulk of the indian engineering capacity is located in just a few states maharashtra, karnataka, tamil nadu and

14、 andhra pradesh. further, the table also shows that the bulk of the capacity here is accounted for by “self financed” colleges, where students receive a much smaller subsidy, if at all, compared with the state financed colleges. an interesting and hitherto unexplored question is the reason that the

15、organizational innovation of self- financing colleges has not diffused to other parts of the country. we can only speculate that this has to do partly with cultural and political factors, and partly with the lower returns to investments in human capital in other parts of the country. not coincidenta

16、lly, the south and west are also economically more advanced.we believe that although investments in engineering education are necessary, a bigger part of the solution lies in a more efficient use of existing human capital resources. implicit in the discussion thus far is that only engineering gradua

17、tes are well suited to perform the tasks required. this assumption appears to have shaky foundations. first, the bulk of the engineers working in the industry are not, in fact, trained in software engineering, computer science or related disciplines. further, a very significant fraction of the work

18、involves developing and refining business applications, databases and the like. indeed, initially a great of the work involved porting applications from one computing platform, typically a mainframe, to another platform such as a unix platform. this work requires familiarity with software developmen

19、t tools. it does not require a deep knowledge of computer architecture or operating systems. finally, much of the work has tended to consist of small projects, with fairly low levels of technical complexity. arora et al (2000) report that the median size of the “most important export project” of the

20、 firms they surveyed was only 150 man months, with an average of 510. this suggests that the typical export project is even smaller. moreover, about half of the work was carried out in india; the rest was onsite, in the us.when pressed, most of the managers agreed that they did not require engineers

21、: bright graduates from any field could, with proper training, do what was needed. it seems that the preference for engineers is in some cases a way of signaling quality to customers. as one ceo put it “take somebody from a good college (any of the top 20 colleges in india), give him 3 months of ori

22、entation and they are ready to take up a programming assignment. i dont need all these engineers. but i dont want to be branded by my customers as a guy who hires niit graduates.” (emphases added.)(from sloan report, arora et al 1999)this is a clear instance of a “race to the top”. with limited mark

23、et power, indian software exporters try to distinguish themselves from the competition by pointing to the quality of their processes and people, and when possible, their experience.firms also have quality concerns. some managers we interviewed believe that an engineering education imparts a set of p

24、roblem solving skills, methods of thinking logically and learning tools that help quick adaptation to changes in technology, domains and tasks. since indian firms provide services across a range of platforms and domains, this is an important asset. another important consideration has to do the quali

25、ty signaling in the labor market. the indian education system is such that competition for an engineering education is intense, and as a result, graduating with an engineering degree is a signal of qualities such as intelligence and willingness to work hard. software firms may prize these qualities

26、more than the specific substantive knowledge of engineering.if so, this is certainly an inefficient allocation of resources.17 indeed; the software industry has been growing in part by drawing away engineers from other industries. in our interviews we came across a number of instances of engineers w

27、ith highly specialized training (such as vlsi design or satellite systems) working on tasks such as database design or development of business application software. quite a few senior level engineers were drawn from a variety of public sector research and development institutions. such a transfer of

28、 resources is entirely in line with the presumed comparative advantage in software development. of course, there are a variety of distortions in the indian economy, which imply caution in interpreting the market signals.18 in addition to changing the composition of economic activity, the increasingl

29、y tight market for engineers and managers is also likely to affect the organization of economic activity. as we discuss in greater detail in section 6, the increasing demand for trained engineers and managers is also affecting the balance between capital and labor (or more precisely, between capital

30、 and human capital), resulting in organizational innovations.the clearly increasing payoffs to human capital are also inducing greater investment in human capital. the indian middle class has always relied upon education, particularly professional education such as engineering or medicine as means o

31、f economic advance. however, with a slowly growing economy, the returns to such investments have not been very high. the precarious state of public finances has limited the ability of the central and state governments to expand tertiary education. the rapid growth of the software sector has however,

32、 marked a watershed. one of the most rapidly growing sectors within the software industry is for private training.private training institutions train individuals specifically for work in software development. nasscom sources estimated that there were 3800 such training firms in 1998, in what was the

33、n a $300 million market, although together niit and aptech are believed to have 70% of the software training market. private training institutes are also important for helping existing software developers acquire new skills. many engineers also undertake further training in software development on t

34、heir own from private training institutes. the growing presence of private training institutes in cities in india is increasingly making it possible for software developers to obtain certificates and diplomas from such institutes.it is also noteworthy that this is a private sector response to a mark

35、et opportunity, namely the demand for training in specialized skills. in the us and elsewhere, for profit firms compete with a variety of public institutions, such as state and community colleges in the us. in india, the rapid growth of private training institutes testifies to the changed economic c

36、limate and the channeling of entrepreneurship into economically productive areas away from mere rent-seeking. this change, too, owes at least indirectly to the rapid growth of the software industry.to sum up the foregoing, we believe the evidence indicates that until recently, an excess supply of tr

37、ained engineering talent was a significant source of competitive advantage for indian firms. by the same token, it provided few incentives for firms to economize on the use of skilled engineering talent. instead, the growth of the industry and high salaries have attracted not only newly graduating e

38、ngineers but also engineers, managers and other professionals from other industrial sectors.despite this, the explosive growth in the software industry has lead to a stage where firms recognize that skilled engineers, software professionals and good managers are a scarce resource. moreover, faced wi

39、th a number of attractive options including a move overseas, these talented engineers and managers are looking for more money and a more professional and rewarding work environment. in turn, this entails a variety of organizational changes we discuss below.軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)和印度的經(jīng)濟發(fā)展asish arora suma athreye美國 印度信息

40、經(jīng)濟學(xué)和政策，2001年第一期4、軟件行業(yè)的發(fā)展和人力資本的形成：在教育方面的私人和公共投資和工程教育回報盡管印度擁有世界上最多的科學(xué)家和工程師，但是其由于52%的工作人員無法讀寫，而同時成為世界上識字率最低的國家。正如表3所示，盡管有大量的工程師，但是印度每百萬人口里工程師的數(shù)量還是低于其他一些國家。由于緩慢增長的干預(yù)型經(jīng)濟不能產(chǎn)生對工程師的足夠需求，相應(yīng)的就有對現(xiàn)存但未被雇用的工程師的過度依賴。大部分的印度軟件公司的職員都畢業(yè)于工程學(xué)院。根據(jù)arora et al. (2000)的報告，大部分被訪企業(yè)只雇用工程師。60家軟件公司的調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)顯示，超過80%的公司雇員有工程師學(xué)位，只有13%是

41、在軟件發(fā)展中被培訓(xùn)起來的非工程師。在采訪中，很多公司明確表示他們只雇用工程師。 在軟件行業(yè)發(fā)展的初期，由于需求遠遠小于每年的供給量，這種對工程師的偏好并不明顯或者不導(dǎo)致什么后果。印度總共有160，000各種各樣工程類畢業(yè)生。印度產(chǎn)業(yè)穩(wěn)定而快速的發(fā)展意味著在1998年和1999年間，被雇傭者的數(shù)量將會累計到近250.000，預(yù)計將會在2000到2001年間突破400，000。即使軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)每年以50%的增長率增長，甚至假設(shè)生產(chǎn)力提高，軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)似乎還是會將出現(xiàn)工程師供不應(yīng)求的局面。（參考 arora, asundi 和 fernandes,2000年細節(jié)。） 這些預(yù)言得到證據(jù)支持。軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)的工資率每

42、年以20%的增長率在增長，同時人員損耗率也是相當(dāng)?shù)母?。?dāng)在1998年至1999年間，當(dāng)軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)被問及列舉他們發(fā)展所面臨的三大問題時，超過一半的公司（以超過100的公司為樣本），不考慮公司的時間、規(guī)模和市場導(dǎo)向（出口或者進口），都不約而同的選擇了人員緊缺和人員損耗作為他們所面臨的最嚴重的問題。盡管愿意償付遠遠高于印度標準水平的工資, 很多企業(yè)最終還是發(fā)現(xiàn)難以吸引并且留住優(yōu)秀的軟件開發(fā)人才。公共政策對此做出的反應(yīng)是加強在工程學(xué)院上的投資，重視工程課程上的信息技術(shù)，和信息技術(shù)機構(gòu)（iiit）以及更有名的印度技術(shù)機構(gòu)的創(chuàng)建等。盡管從表面上來看這些舉措是合理的，但是實際上這并不能解決問題。這些投資根本不

43、可能在短期內(nèi)能顯著改善工程人員供給。同時，如此大規(guī)模擴容導(dǎo)致軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)發(fā)展趨向于抽調(diào)工程碩士和博士。一份最近對印度工程研究生教育的調(diào)查顯示，工程博士的數(shù)量已經(jīng)從1987年的675位下降到1995年的375位。同時，擁有碩士頭銜的工程師的數(shù)量也只是緩慢增長，從1987-89年間的12，000位增長到了1990-92年間的17，000位。對印度技術(shù)機構(gòu)理工學(xué)校的調(diào)查顯示，大量的該校畢業(yè)生進入信息技術(shù)部門工作，有時甚至高達90%。另外，表6顯示印度大部分工程學(xué)校集中在少部分的幾個州maharashtra, karnataka, tamil nadu and andhra pradesh。同時其中大部分

44、都是私立大學(xué)，在這些學(xué)校的學(xué)生收到的補助遠遠小于就讀于州立大學(xué)的學(xué)生。但是，私立學(xué)院并未能在國家的其它部分擴散開來是一個有趣而費解的現(xiàn)象。我們只能大概的估計這部分歸因于文化和政治因素，部分取決于在其它州人力資本投資的低收益率。并非巧合的，南部和西北在經(jīng)濟上確實是更發(fā)達。 我們認為，盡管在工程教育方面的投資是必需的，但是解決問題的更有效的辦法應(yīng)該是依賴于對現(xiàn)有人力資源的合理利用。在這場爭論中的隱含假設(shè)是只有工程類畢業(yè)生才能勝任軟件開發(fā)任務(wù)。這個假設(shè)技術(shù)顯然是不合理的。首先,大部分現(xiàn)在軟件產(chǎn)業(yè)工作的工程師事實上都是沒有接受過在軟件工程、電腦科學(xué)或者相關(guān)領(lǐng)域等的訓(xùn)練。其次，很大一部分工作是涉及到商業(yè)

45、應(yīng)用，數(shù)據(jù)庫等。事實上，最初大量的工作涉及到從一個運行平臺（通常如維護）到另一個運行平臺（如unix平臺）的運用。這些工作只要求對軟件開發(fā)工具相當(dāng)熟悉，但并不要求對電腦結(jié)構(gòu)和運行系統(tǒng)具有很深的認識。最后，大部分的工作其實都是由一個個具有較低技術(shù)復(fù)雜性的小工程組成的。arora et al（2000）在他們調(diào)查中發(fā)現(xiàn)，公司最重要的出口工程的中等規(guī)模是150個人，但平均有510人。這表明典型的出口工程甚至更小。更有甚者，大約一半的工作在印度國內(nèi)執(zhí)行，剩下的則在美國。當(dāng)迫于無奈，很多經(jīng)理也表示他們并不需要工程師：聰明的畢業(yè)生只要經(jīng)過適當(dāng)?shù)呐嘤?xùn)，是能很快勝任何工作的。但是似乎對工程師的偏好是出于對顧客傳遞產(chǎn)品質(zhì)量信號的考慮。正如某一ceo所說，“雇傭任何一個優(yōu)秀學(xué)府的畢業(yè)生（印度排名前20的大學(xué)中的任何一所），給他