Is Sustainable Economic Development Possible Thanks to the Deployment of ICT?

Antonio Fernández-Portillo, Manuel Almodóvar-González, José Luís Coca-Pérez and Héctor Valentín Jiménez-Naranjo
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Antonio Fernández-Portillo: Department of Financial Economics and Accounting, University of Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain
Manuel Almodóvar-González: Department of Financial Economics and Accounting, University of Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain
José Luís Coca-Pérez: Department of Financial Economics and Accounting, University of Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain
Héctor Valentín Jiménez-Naranjo: Department of Financial Economics and Accounting, University of Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 22, 1-15

Abstract: Achieving sustainable economic development is one of humanity’s greatest challenges, and, in this regard, the United Nations has promoted a line of research based on sustainable economic development. In view of this, our study focused on the sustainable economic development of nations, specifically, development through the deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Academic researchers recognize the importance of ICT for economic and sustainable development, but there is controversy in the literature regarding two opposing points of view. First, there is a view that advances in ICT support Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, while, on the other hand, the view is that there is no relationship between these two factors. In view of this, we conducted a study where the objective was to determine whether investing in ICT contributes to sustainable economic development (measured by the GDP per capita) of European Union countries. We used Eurostat data and applied the partial least-squares (PLS) method to address the study. This approach allowed us to analyze European Union countries from 2014 to 2017, using fairly rigorous data. The most outstanding result was that ICT accounted for most of the explained variance in GDP per capita (GDPpp), and, specifically, the most representative indicator was “digital public services.” Therefore, we concluded that investing in the deployment of ICT supports the sustainable economic development of European Union countries. These countries should focus on investing in improved connectivity in areas with poor communications, as well as in training area inhabitants in the use and development of ICT to obtain greater development using these tools and technologies.

Keywords: ICT; sustainable development; GDPpp; European Union; PLS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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