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ICT Use in the Developing World: An Analysis of Differences in Computer and Internet Penetration
Author(s) -
Chinn Menzie D.,
Fairlie Robert W.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
review of international economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.513
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-9396
pISSN - 0965-7576
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9396.2009.00861.x
Subject(s) - developing country , human capital , the internet , information and communications technology , panel data , economics , demographic economics , penetration (warfare) , mean reversion , personal computer , cross country , business , development economics , economic growth , econometrics , political science , law , management , world wide web , computer science , computer hardware
Using panel data for 161 countries, we explore the determinants of cross‐country disparities in personal computer and Internet penetration. We find evidence indicating that income, human capital, the youth dependency ratio, telephone density, legal quality, and banking sector development are associated with technology penetration rates. Estimates from Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions comparing rates in the developed‐country total to developing countries (Total, Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Mexico, and Nigeria) reveal that the main factors responsible for low rates of technology penetration rates in developing countries are disparities in income, telephone density, legal quality, and human capital. In terms of dynamics, our results indicate fairly rapid reversion to long‐run equilibrium for Internet use, and somewhat slower reversion for computer use.