Does ICT diffusion validate skill-biased technological change hypothesis? Evidence from the post-Soviet countries

Kazi Sohag (), M. Badur, Waqar Ameer and Šárka Vilamová

Technology in Society, 2024, vol. 76, issue C

Abstract: This study scrutinizes the impact of ICT diffusion on decomposed measures of income inequality in post-Soviet countries. We apply the Cross-Sectional Autoregressive Distributed Lags (CS-ARDL) approach to examine the dynamics of our panel time series data from 1991 to 2019. Empirical evidence suggests that ICT diffusion is negatively associated with the income of the top segments (the top 1 % and 10 %) of the population in the long term, while its impact is insignificant in the short term. Moreover, the ICT diffusion de facto (policy-implementation spectrum) primarily promotes the income share of the bottom class, probably by providing new market opportunities. The spread of ICT, in terms of policy decisions, leads to a notable decrease in the income proportion held by the top 10 % of earners, exhibiting the most significant level of responsiveness. Furthermore, our findings infer that government expenditure can also play a crucial role in reducing income inequality by decreasing the income portion of the top segment. The implications of our findings have direct relevance for policymakers in formulating effective strategies regarding ICT diffusion-income inequality nexus.

Keywords: ICT diffusion; Income disparity; Post-soviet; CS-ARDL (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X23002555
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:76:y:2024:i:c:s0160791x23002555

DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102450

Access Statistics for this article

Technology in Society is currently edited by Charla Griffy-Brown

More articles in Technology in Society from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().