IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/telpol/v45y2021i8s0308596121001245.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The rewards of municipal broadband: An econometric analysis of the labor market

Author

Listed:
  • Ford, George S.
  • Alan Seals, R.

Abstract

With data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, we estimate the effect of a large-scale, government-owned broadband network in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on labor market outcomes. Difference-in-Differences, augmented with Coarsened Exact Matching, is used to estimate the causal effect of the network across nine labor market outcomes. We find no economically- nor statistically-significant effect on the labor market from the city's broadband investments.

Suggested Citation

  • Ford, George S. & Alan Seals, R., 2021. "The rewards of municipal broadband: An econometric analysis of the labor market," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(8).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:45:y:2021:i:8:s0308596121001245
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102220
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596121001245
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102220?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ford, George S., 2018. "Is faster better? Quantifying the relationship between broadband speed and economic growth," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 766-777.
    2. James G. MacKinnon & Matthew D. Webb, 2018. "The wild bootstrap for few (treated) clusters," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(2), pages 114-135, June.
    3. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    4. David H. Autor & David Dorn, 2013. "The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1553-1597, August.
    5. Boehm, Christoph E., 2020. "Government consumption and investment: Does the composition of purchases affect the multiplier?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 80-93.
    6. Iacus, Stefano & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2009. "cem: Software for Coarsened Exact Matching," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 30(i09).
    7. Simona Iammarino & Andrés Rodriguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2019. "Regional inequality in Europe: evidence, theory and policy implications," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 273-298.
    8. Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2012. "Urban Growth and Transportation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1407-1440.
    9. George S. Ford & Thomas M. Koutsky, 2005. "Broadband And Economic Development: A Municipal Case Study From Florida," Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 216-229, November.
    10. James J. Heckman & Ganesh Karapakula, 2019. "Intergenerational and Intragenerational Externalities of the Perry Preschool Project," NBER Working Papers 25889, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Matthew Blackwell & Stefano Iacus & Gary King & Giuseppe Porro, 2009. "cem: Coarsened exact matching in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(4), pages 524-546, December.
    12. David Neumark, 2018. "Experimental Research on Labor Market Discrimination," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 799-866, September.
    13. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    14. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    15. King, Gary & Zeng, Langche, 2001. "Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 137-163, January.
    16. Gary Solon & Steven J. Haider & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "What Are We Weighting For?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 301-316.
    17. James G. MacKinnon & Matthew D. Webb, 2019. "Wild Bootstrap Randomization Inference for Few Treated Clusters," Advances in Econometrics, in: The Econometrics of Complex Survey Data, volume 39, pages 61-85, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    18. Robert C. Seamans, 2012. "Fighting City Hall: Entry Deterrence and Technology Upgrades in Cable TV Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 461-475, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Yoo, Christopher S. & Lambert, Jesse & Pfenninger, Timothy P., 2022. "Municipal fiber in the United States: A financial assessment," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5).
    2. Philip Chen & Edward J Oughton & Pete Tyler & Mo Jia & Jakub Zagdanski, 2020. "Evaluating the impact of next generation broadband on local business creation," Papers 2010.14113, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carpenter, Christopher S. & Gonzales, Gilbert & McKay, Tara & Sansone, Dario, 2020. "Effects of the Affordable Care Act Dependent Coverage Mandate on Health Insurance Coverage for Individuals in Same-Sex Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 13119, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Damian Clarke & Kathya Tapia-Schythe, 2021. "Implementing the panel event study," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 21(4), pages 853-884, December.
    3. James G. MacKinnon, 2019. "How cluster‐robust inference is changing applied econometrics," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 851-881, August.
    4. Hansen, Bruce E. & Lee, Seojeong, 2019. "Asymptotic theory for clustered samples," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 210(2), pages 268-290.
    5. García-Ramos, Aixa, 2021. "Divorce laws and intimate partner violence: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    6. Lauren E. Jones & Kevin Milligan & Mark Stabile, 2019. "Child cash benefits and family expenditures: Evidence from the National Child Benefit," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1433-1463, November.
    7. MacKinnon, James G. & Nielsen, Morten Ørregaard & Webb, Matthew D., 2023. "Cluster-robust inference: A guide to empirical practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 232(2), pages 272-299.
    8. Dorner, Matthias & Görlitz, Katja, 2020. "Training, wages and a missing school graduation cohort," IAB-Discussion Paper 202028, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    9. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    10. MacKinnon, James G. & Nielsen, Morten Ørregaard & Webb, Matthew D., 2023. "Testing for the appropriate level of clustering in linear regression models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2027-2056.
    11. Gröger, André, 2021. "Easy come, easy go? Economic shocks, labor migration and the family left behind," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    12. Friedman, Willa & Keats, Anthony & Mutua, Martin Kavao, 2022. "Disruptions to healthcare quality and early child health outcomes: Evidence from health-worker strikes in Kenya," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    13. Tom Boot & Gianmaria Niccodemi & Tom Wansbeek, 2023. "Unbiased estimation of the OLS covariance matrix when the errors are clustered," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(6), pages 2511-2533, June.
    14. Burbano, Vanessa C. & Ostler, James, 2021. "Differences in consumer-benefiting misconduct by nonprofit, for-profit, and public organizations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 117-136.
    15. MacKinnon, James G., 2023. "Using large samples in econometrics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 922-926.
    16. Holm-Hadulla, Fédéric, 2020. "Fiscal equalization and the tax structure," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. Kathryn Vasilaky & Sofía Martínez Sáenz & Radost Stanimirova & Daniel Osgood, 2020. "Perceptions of Farm Size Heterogeneity and Demand for Group Index Insurance," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-21, March.
    18. Matthew D. Webb, 2023. "Reworking wild bootstrap‐based inference for clustered errors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 839-858, August.
    19. Roxanne Kovacs & Maurice Dunaiski & Janne Tukiainen, 2023. "The effect of compulsory face mask policies on community mobility in Germany," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(4), pages 1027-1055, October.
    20. James G. MacKinnon & Matthew D. Webb, 2020. "When and How to Deal with Clustered Errors in Regression Models," Working Paper 1421, Economics Department, Queen's University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Broadband; Internet; Government-owned network; Municipal broadband;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O00 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - General - - - General
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:45:y:2021:i:8:s0308596121001245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/description#description .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.