Broadband and economic growth: a reassessment

Walter Mayer, Gary Madden and Chen Wu

Information Technology for Development, 2020, vol. 26, issue 1, 128-145

Abstract: The principal question addressed by this study is: is broadband network penetration a robust determinant of economic growth? We employ a dynamic panel data threshold model with fixed effects to allow for variation in the parameters by income groups to investigate the impact of broadband speed and its interaction with penetration on growth. We find that penetration is statistically insignificant with speed (positively) and its interaction with penetration (negatively) significantly impacting on growth. An additional insight is that for a generic shock experienced by LIC, on average, 40% of the total impact is accomplished immediately, with about 80% occurring within four quarters. The results are intended to inform governments that increased speed is more important for countries with lower penetation, the returns expected from these ambitious targets are neither immediate nor universally assured; and critically the magnitude of the benefit relies on the initial level of national economic development.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02681102.2019.1586631 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:titdxx:v:26:y:2020:i:1:p:128-145

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/titd20

DOI: 10.1080/02681102.2019.1586631

Access Statistics for this article

Information Technology for Development is currently edited by Sajda Qureshi

More articles in Information Technology for Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().