Telecommunications and Growth

Telecommunications infrastructure is recognized as a
catalyst for economic
growth. The literature has identified how
infrastructure contributes to growth, ways that
telecommunications specifically contributes,
and empirically confirmed a significant, positive
bi-directional relationship
between telecommunications infrastructure and growth.
More recently, the technological innovations in
telecommunications in the 90s have sparked a debate
about whether these technologies have created a
"digital divide." This work reviews this underlying
theory and the debates surrounding this subject.
Data for this analysis include 79 countries for the
years 1981-2000. The model is regressed using
ordinary least squares, a panel-data method, and
finally it is instrumented to attempt to control for
endogeneity. The instruments utilized in
this investigation prove to be ineffective. The
results of the empirical work confirm
that there is a strong relationship between
telecommunications and growth; that the
technological revolution of the 1990s dramatically
strengthened this relationship;
and that these benefits are biased towards more
developed countries, confirming the
existence of a digital divide.

Autorentext

Phillip Stephenson wrote this as his thesis in Economics at Reed College.

Klappentext
Telecommunications infrastructure is recognized as a catalyst for economic growth. The literature has identified how infrastructure contributes to growth, ways that telecommunications specifically contributes, and empirically confirmed a significant, positive bi-directional relationship between telecommunications infrastructure and growth. More recently, the technological innovations in telecommunications in the 90s have sparked a debate about whether these technologies have created a "digital divide." This work reviews this underlying theory and the debates surrounding this subject. Data for this analysis include 79 countries for the years 1981-2000. The model is regressed using ordinary least squares, a panel-data method, and finally it is instrumented to attempt to control for endogeneity. The instruments utilized in this investigation prove to be ineffective. The results of the empirical work confirm that there is a strong relationship between telecommunications and growth; that the technological revolution of the 1990s dramatically strengthened this relationship; and that these benefits are biased towards more developed countries, confirming the existence of a digital divide.