A Dynamic Flexible Partial-Adjustment Model of International Diffusion of the Internet

Minkyu Lee () and Almas Heshmati ()
Additional contact information
Minkyu Lee: Seoul National University, Postal: Techno-Economics and Policy Program, , College of Engineering, Seoul National University, , San 56-1 Shinlim-dong, Kwanak-gu, Seoul 151-744, Korea,

No 99, Ratio Working Papers from The Ratio Institute

Abstract: The paper introduces a dynamic, flexible partial-adjustment model and uses it to analyze the diffusion of Internet connectivity. It specifies and estimates desired levels of Internet diffusion and the speed at which countries achieve the target levels. The target levels and speed of adjustment are both country and time specific. Factors affecting Internet diffusion across countries are identified, and, using nonlinear least squares, the Gompertz growth model is generalized and estimated using data on Internet users for 59 countries observed over the years 1995 to 2002. The empirical results show that infrastructure variables such as personal computer ownership and telephone service increase the equilibrium level of internet diffusion. The speed of adjustment toward a target level decreases over time. Regarding model performance, the generalized dynamic Gompertz model that accounts for unobserved country heterogeneity effects outperforms other, simpler and static model specifications.

Keywords: technology diffusion; Internet; panel data; technology adoption; Gompertz model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 L86 L96 O33 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2006-05-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ratio.se/pdf/wp/ah_internet.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.ratio.se/pdf/wp/ah_internet.pdf [308 Permanent Redirect]--> https://www.ratio.se/pdf/wp/ah_internet.pdf [308 Permanent Redirect]--> https://ratio.se/pdf/wp/ah_internet.pdf)

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:hhs:ratioi:0099

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ratio Working Papers from The Ratio Institute The Ratio Institute, P.O. Box 5095, SE-102 42 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Martin Korpi ().