Does high-speed internet boost exporting?

Lynda Sanderson, Garrick Wright-McNaughton and Naomitsu Yashiro ()
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Garrick Wright-McNaughton: FNZ Group
Naomitsu Yashiro: International Monetary Fund

No 2022/02, Working Papers from New Zealand Productivity Commission

Abstract: This paper examines the links between uptake of high-speed internet and entry into exporting among New Zealand firms. The analysis draws on rich, longitudinal information about firms' use of ICT captured in Stats NZ's Business Operations Survey to both identify firms which shifted to UFB and infer differences across firms in their capability to exploit the faster internet connections. It shows that firms that shifted to fibre broadband in the early years of New Zealand's Ultra-Fast Broadband rollout were subsequently more likely than otherwise similar firms to start exporting, and that the strength of this relationship depends upon both the industry in which firms operate and their pre-existing use of the internet for core business activities. To explore the causality lying behind this relationship, the paper makes use of a policy choice to prioritise schools in the rollout of the new fibre broadband infrastructure as an instrument for early uptake. While the results are consistent with a positive effect of UFB uptake on export entry, the instruments are not strong enough to draw firm conclusions on causality.

Keywords: high-speed internet; UFB; export propensity; digital capability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 H54 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-ict, nep-int, nep-reg and nep-sbm
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ayz:wpaper:22_02

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