Macroeconomic benefits of quality infrastructure

One reason for investing in Quality Infrastructure (QI) is its contribution to a country’s economic growth. QI enhances economic performance through several avenues, including opening markets, reducing entry barriers, promoting knowledge transfer and better management procedures, facilitating production along value chains, enabling economies of scale, and reducing adverse selection and asymmetric information (Gonçalves and Peuckert, 2011). While interest in QI has been increasing over the years, QI experts, researchers and practitioners are challenged with quantifying the economic benefits of QI to highlight its importance and justify the need for investment and further development. So far, there have been various studies on the macroeconomic impact of individual QI components, such as standards, metrology and conformity assessment. However, an impact analysis for the entire system is still pending. This blog explores the methodologies used for the macroeconomic impact assessments of the different QI components and the possibility of conducting an assessment of the overall QI system.

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The Implications of Artificial Intelligence for the Quality Infrastructure

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on everyone’s lips. A significant stimulus was when the US company OpenAI published the ChatGPT in November 2022.[1] GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer and is a text-based dialogue system as a user interface based on machine learning. Millions of internet users registered to gain access to this new oracle in just a few days.

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Data on international standards

QI Data Series

What are the differences between countries using international standards?

For decades, the United States, Western Europe and Japan have led international standard development. Representatives of these countries chaired most international standards committees and led standard making through agenda-setting and the know-how of national companies and scientific institutions. Representatives from other countries also participated in standards committees but chaired only a few technical committees. Standards takers are those countries that adopt standards but do not participate in developing those standards.

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Cross-frontier accreditation: practice and impact

Accreditation builds trust in international trade

Accreditation is a valuable tool for building trust in international trade. Accreditation bodies assess and confirm the technical competence and independence of conformity assessment service providers, i.e. testing laboratories, inspection and certification bodies.

By multilateral agreements, accreditation bodies recognise the equivalence of their services. Mutual recognition prevents tests or certifications from being issued more than once and reduces transaction costs for companies.

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Benchmarking QI worldwide

For ten years, we, Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke and Juan José Oteiza have been working on measuring and comparing the development level of a country’s quality infrastructure (QI). This challenging task occupied not only us but also colleagues from metrology, standardisation and accreditation bodies, and other consultants. Those responsible for QI in international development cooperation asked themselves the same question.

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