Digitalisation in Italy: evidence from a new regional index

Andrea Benecchi (), Carlo Bottoni (), Emanuela Ciapanna, Annalisa Frigo (), Aldo Milan () and Elisa Scarinzi ()
Additional contact information
Andrea Benecchi: Bank of Italy
Carlo Bottoni: Bank of Italy
Annalisa Frigo: Bank of Italy
Aldo Milan: AGCOM
Elisa Scarinzi: Bank of Italy

No 662, Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: The geographic digital divide has a significant, though largely unexplored, dimension within a country. This paper proposes an index of digital development for the Italian NUTS2 regions (rDESI) based on the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). The rDESI monitors the regional digital divide across five dimensions: (i) the infrastructure and the network usage (connectivity), (ii) the population’s digital skills, (iii) the use of internet services by households, (iv) the integration of ICT by firms, and (v) the level of digital services offered by local government. Southern regions tend to lag behind in most of these dimensions, even if infrastructures and the quality of connectivity appears quite homogeneous across the country. In the last part of the paper, we highlight the limitations of the DESI methodology, proposing some improvements.

Keywords: digitalization; connectivitym DESI; regional divergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 C80 L96 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-ict, nep-pay, nep-tid and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Digitalisation in Italy: Evidence from a New Regional Index (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_662_21

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