Policy Reform, Economic Growth, and the Digital Divide : An Econometric Analysis

Dasgupta, Susmita ; Lall, Somik ; Wheeler, David

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO TELEPHONES;    CAPITAL CITIES;    CITIES;    COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES;    COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2567
RP-ID  :  WPS2567

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Rapid growth of Internet use inhigh-income economies, has raised the specter of a"digital divide" that will marginalize developingcountries, because they can neither afford Internet access,nor use it effectively when it is available. Using a newcross-country data set, the authors investigate twoproximate determinants of the digital divide: Internetintensity (Internet subscriptions per telephones mainline),and access to telecom services. Surprisingly, they find nogap in Internet intensity. When differences in urbanization,and competition policy are controlled for, low-incomecountries have intensities as high as those of industrialcountries. While income does not seem to matter in thiscontext, competition policy matters a great deal. Low-incomecountries with high World Bank ratings for competitionpolicy, have significantly higher Internet intensities. Theauthors' findings on Internet intensity implies thatthe digital divide is not really new, but reflects apersistent gap in the availability of mainline telephonesservices. After identifying mobile telephones as a promisingnew platform for Internet access, they use panel data tostudy the determinants of mobile telephone diffusion duringthe past decade. Their results show that income explainspart of the diffusion lag for poor countries, but they alsohighlight the critical role of policy. Developing countrieswhose policies promote economic growth, and private sectorcompetition, have experienced much more rapid diffusion ofmobile telephone services. Simulations based on theeconometric results, suggest that feasible reforms couldsharply narrow the digital divide during the next decade formany countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Theauthors' review of the literature, also suggests thatdirect access promotion would yield substantial benefits forpoor households, and that cost-effective interventionstrategies are now available.