 Does the diffusion of information and communication technologies affect the shadow economy in Africa?Melingui Bate Adalbert Abraham Ghislain African Development Review, 2022, vol. 34, issue 4, 513-526 Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the effect of information and communication technology (ICT) diffusion on the shadow economic activities in Africa for the period from 2000 to 2015. To this end, we use a panel data model on a sample of 48 countries. The results obtained show that the diffusion of ICTs, especially mobile telephony and the Internet, negatively and significantly affect the size of the shadow economy in Africa. The level of education, capital stock, economic growth, and financial development also contribute to reducing the size of the informal economy in Africa. However, our results suggest that informal activities are motivated by the abundance of natural resources and migrant remittances. Robustness checks are done through the system generalized method of moments and a change in the measurement of the shadow economy confirms the validity of the results. We recommend to decision‐makers to implement public policies facilitating the access and the use of new telecommunications tools and services and to improve the institutional framework to encourage private economic agents to invest in formal activities. Date: 2022 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:afrdev:v:34:y:2022:i:4:p:513-526 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article African Development Review is currently edited by John C. Anyanwu, Hassan Aly and Kupukile Mlambo More articles in African Development Review from African Development Bank Contact information at EDIRC. |
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