IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Login to save this article or follow this journal

Telecommunications Infrastructure and Economic Development: A Simultaneous Approach

Author Info

  • Lars-Hendrik Roller
  • Leonard Waverman

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how telecommunications infrastructure affects economic growth. We use evidence from 21 OECD countries over a 20-year period to examine the impacts that telecommunications developments may have had. We jointly estimate a micromodel for telecommunication investment with a macro production function. We find evidence of a significant positive causal link, especially when a critical mass of telecommunications infrastructure is present. Interestingly, the critical mass appears to be at a level of telecommunications infrastructure that is near universal service.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.91.4.909
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 91 (2001)
Issue (Month): 4 (September)
Pages: 909-923

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:91:y:2001:i:4:p:909-923
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.4.909
Contact details of provider: Web page: https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/Email:


More information through EDIRC

Order Information: Web: https://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
  • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications
  • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
  • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Is public expenditure productive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-200, March.
  2. Quah, Danny, 1993. "Empirical cross-section dynamics in economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 426-434, April.
  3. J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, . "How Strongly Do Developing Countries Benefit from Equipment Investment?," J. Bradford De Long's Working Papers _108, University of California at Berkeley, Economics Department.
  4. Hardy, Andrew P., 1980. "The role of the telephone in economic development," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 278-286, December.
  5. Alicia H. Munnell, 1992. "Policy Watch: Infrastructure Investment and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 189-198, Fall.
  6. J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, . "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," J. Bradford De Long's Working Papers _122, University of California at Berkeley, Economics Department.
  7. Quah, Danny, 1993. " Galton's Fallacy and Tests of the Convergence Hypothesis," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 427-43, December.
  8. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1994. "Endogenous Innovation in the Theory of Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
  9. Leff, Nathaniel H, 1984. "Externalities, Information Costs, and Social Benefit-Cost Analysis for Economic Development: An Example from Telecommunications," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 255-76, January.
  10. Mankiw, N Gregory & Romer, David & Weil, David N, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-37, May.
  11. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 1993. "State-specific estimates of state and local government capital," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 185-209, April.
  12. Gramlich, Edward M, 1994. "Infrastructure Investment: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 1176-96, September.
  13. Olivier Cadot & Lars-Hendrik Röller & Andreas Stephan, 1999. "A Political Economy Model of Infrastructure Allocation: An Empirical Assessment," CIG Working Papers FS IV 99-15, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
  14. John Fernald, 1997. "Roads to prosperity? assessing the link between public capital and productivity," International Finance Discussion Papers 592, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  15. Greenstein, Shane M & Spiller, Pablo T, 1995. "Modern Telecommunications Infrastructure and Economic Activity: An Empirical Investigation," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 647-65.
  16. Garcia-Mila, Teresa & McGuire, Therese J., 1992. "The contribution of publicly provided inputs to states' economies," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 229-241, June.
  17. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 1994. "Public-Sector Capital and the Productivity Puzzle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 12-21, February.
  18. Frank R. Lichtenberg, 1993. "The Output Contributions of Computer Equipment and Personnel: A Firm- Level Analysis," NBER Working Papers 4540, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  19. Norton, Seth W, 1992. "Transaction Costs, Telecommunications, and the Microeconomics of Macroeconomic Growth," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 175-96, October.
  20. Pereira, Alfredo M. & de Frutos, Rafael Flores, 1999. "Public Capital Accumulation and Private Sector Performance," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 300-322, September.
  21. Shane M. Greenstein & Pablo T. Spiller, 1996. "Estimating the Welfare Effects of Digital Infrastructure," NBER Working Papers 5770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:

  1. Telecommunications Infrastructure and Economic Development: A Simultaneous Approach (AER 2001) in ReplicationWiki
  2. Leonard Waverman in Wikipedia English ne '')

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:91:y:2001:i:4:p:909-923. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jane Voros)

or (Michael P. Albert)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.