Differentiating mobile broadband policies across diffusion stages: A panel data analysis

Mekuria Haile Teklemariam and Youngsun Kwon

Telecommunications Policy, 2020, vol. 44, issue 8

Abstract: This paper finds that policy mixes for mobile broadband diffusion need to be differentiated depending on where a country is situated in three stages of mobile broadband diffusion because as a mobile broadband market grows, demand constraints hindering subscription of mobile broadband will also change. A total of 115 countries are clustered into three groups (Take-off, Fast-Diffusion, and Saturated), categorized by their diffusion rates and diffusion speeds over four years from 2013 to 2016. With pooled and fixed effect panel data models, this paper examines which variables out of 23 explanatory variables were effective in promoting mobile broadband adoption globally. Further, by interacting explanatory variables with two group dummies, this paper identifies differential slope (policy) effects of each explanatory variable on mobile broadband adoption. The paper concludes that, among the three groups, considerable gaps exist in the size of effective policy choice sets: six for Take-off, ten for Fast-diffusion, and thirteen for Saturated, suggesting that the countries in the Take-off stage have a very narrow degree of latitude for developing mobile broadband promotion strategies.

Keywords: Digital divide; Mobile broadband; Diffusion; Adoption; Policy mix; Panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596120300987
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:telpol:v:44:y:2020:i:8:s0308596120300987

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... /30471/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2020.102006

Access Statistics for this article

Telecommunications Policy is currently edited by Erik Bohlin

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