IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/telpol/v46y2022i7s0308596122001069.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What $2.5 billion can buy: The effect of the Broadband Initiatives Program on farm productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Bai, Yang
  • Wang, Ryan Yang
  • Jayakar, Krishna

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), implemented as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) had a positive impact on farm productivity, defined as farm sales per farm employment, in the counties that received any BIP funding. The effect of BIP on the growth of farm sales was examined for the 2008–2010, 2008–2011, 2008–2012 and 2008–2013 periods. The selection bias (the probability that a county received BIP funding) was accounted for using the inverse probability weighting regression method (IPW). The findings suggest that BIP funding had a significant but short-term impact on per employment farm sales.

Suggested Citation

  • Bai, Yang & Wang, Ryan Yang & Jayakar, Krishna, 2022. "What $2.5 billion can buy: The effect of the Broadband Initiatives Program on farm productivity," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(7).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:46:y:2022:i:7:s0308596122001069
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2022.102404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596122001069
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.telpol.2022.102404?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. Matias Busso & John DiNardo & Justin McCrary, 2014. "New Evidence on the Finite Sample Properties of Propensity Score Reweighting and Matching Estimators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 885-897, December.
    2. Ivan T. Kandilov & Mitch Renkow, 2010. "Infrastructure Investment and Rural Economic Development: An Evaluation of USDA's Broadband Loan Program," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 165-191, June.
    3. Dinterman, Robert & Renkow, Mitch, 2017. "Evaluation of USDA's Broadband Loan Program: Impacts on broadband provision," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 140-153.
    4. Frank Beurskens, 2003. "The Economics of Dot.coms and E-commerce in the Agrifood Sector," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 22-25.
    5. Chris Forman & Avi Goldfarb & Shane Greenstein, 2012. "The Internet and Local Wages: A Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 556-575, February.
    6. Amy M.G. Kandilov & Ivan T. Kandilov & Xiangping Liu & Mitch Renkow, 2017. "The Impact of Broadband on U.S. Agriculture: An Evaluation of the USDA Broadband Loan Program," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 635-661.
    7. Hauge & Prieger, 2015. "Evaluating the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's BTOP on broadband adoption," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(60), pages 6553-6579, December.
    8. B. Mak Arvin & Rudra P. Pradhan, 2014. "Broadband penetration and economic growth nexus: evidence from cross-country panel data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(35), pages 4360-4369, December.
    9. Koutroumpis, Pantelis, 2019. "The economic impact of broadband: Evidence from OECD countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    10. Bertschek Irene & Briglauer Wolfgang & Hüschelrath Kai & Kauf Benedikt & Niebel Thomas, 2015. "The Economic Impacts of Broadband Internet: A Survey," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(4), pages 201-227, December.
    11. Frank Beurskens, 2003. "The Economics of Dot.coms and E-commerce in the Agrifood Sector," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 22-25.
    12. Kolko, Jed, 2012. "Broadband and local growth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 100-113.
    13. Aldashev, Alisher & Batkeyev, Birzhan, 2021. "Broadband Infrastructure and Economic Growth in Rural Areas," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    14. Ivan T. Kandilov & Mitch Renkow, 2020. "The Impacts Of The Usda Broadband Loan And Grant Programs: Moving Toward Estimating A Rate Of Return," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(3), pages 1129-1145, July.
    15. Brian K Lee & Justin Lessler & Elizabeth A Stuart, 2011. "Weight Trimming and Propensity Score Weighting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(3), pages 1-6, March.
    16. Nina Czernich & Oliver Falck & Tobias Kretschmer & Ludger Woessmann, 2011. "Broadband Infrastructure and Economic Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 505-532, May.
    17. Catherine E. Sanders & Kristin E. Gibson & Alexa J. Lamm, 2022. "Rural Broadband and Precision Agriculture: A Frame Analysis of United States Federal Policy Outreach under the Biden Administration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, January.
    18. Stenberg, Peter L. & Morehart, Mitchell J. & Vogel, Stephen J. & Cromartie, John & Breneman, Vincent E. & Brown, Dennis M., 2009. "Broadband Internet's Value for Rural America," Economic Research Report 55944, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Pender, John & Goldstein, Joshua & Mahoney-Nair, Devika, 2022. "Impacts of the Broadband Initiatives Program on broadband adoption and home telework," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8).
    2. Manlove, Jacob & Whitacre, Brian, 2019. "An evaluation of the Connected Nation broadband adoption program," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 1-1.
    3. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Dürr, Niklas S. & Falck, Oliver & Hüschelrath, Kai, 2019. "Does state aid for broadband deployment in rural areas close the digital and economic divide?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 68-85.
    4. Jung, Juan & López-Bazo, Enrique, 2020. "On the regional impact of broadband on productivity: The case of Brazil," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1).
    5. Schmit, Todd M. & Severson, Roberta M., 2021. "Exploring the feasibility of rural broadband cooperatives in the United States: The new New Deal?," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(4).
    6. LoPiccalo, Katherine, 2022. "Impact of broadband penetration on U.S. Farm productivity: A panel approach," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(9).
    7. Bertschek, Irene & Briglauer, Wolfgang & Hüschelrath, Kai & Kauf, Benedikt & Niebel, Thomas, 2016. "The economic impacts of telecommunications networks and broadband internet: A survey," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-056, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    8. Yifeng Philip Chen & Edward J. Oughton & Jakub Zagdanski & Maggie Mo Jia & Peter Tyler, 2023. "Crowdsourced data indicates broadband has a positive impact on local business creation," Papers 2308.14734, arXiv.org.
    9. repec:oup:ajagec:v:99:y:2017:i:1:p:1-18. is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Canzian, Giulia & Poy, Samuele & Schüller, Simone, 2019. "Broadband upgrade and firm performance in rural areas: Quasi-experimental evidence," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 87-103.
    11. Lehtonen, Olli, 2020. "Population grid-based assessment of the impact of broadband expansion on population development in rural areas," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10).
    12. Deller, Steven & Whitacre, Brian, 2018. "Broadband’s Relationship to Rural Housing Values," Staff Paper Series 591, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    13. Gabriel Ahlfeldt & Pantelis Koutroumpis & Tommaso Valletti, 2017. "Speed 2.0: Evaluating Access to Universal Digital Highways," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 586-625.
    14. Czernich, Nina, 2014. "Does broadband internet reduce the unemployment rate? Evidence for Germany," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 32-45.
    15. Abrardi, Laura & Sabatino, Lorien, 2023. "Ultra-broadband investment and economic resilience: Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2).
    16. Stockinger, Bastian, 2017. "The effect of broadband internet on establishments' employment growth: evidence from Germany," IAB-Discussion Paper 201719, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    17. Briglauer, Wolfgang & Stocker, Volker, 2020. "Bedeutung digitaler Infrastrukturen und Dienste und Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Resilienz in Krisenzeiten," Policy Notes 42, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Cambini, Carlo & Grinza, Elena & Sabatino, Lorien, 2023. "Ultra-fast broadband access and productivity: Evidence from Italian firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    19. Jiao Xu & Chris Forman & Yu Jeffrey Hu, 2019. "Battle of the Internet Channels: How Do Mobile and Fixed-Line Quality Drive Internet Use?," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 65-80, March.
    20. Whitacre, Brian & Gallardo, Roberto, 2020. "State broadband policy: Impacts on availability," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(9).
    21. Brian Whitacre & Roberto Gallardo & Sharon Strover, 2014. "Does rural broadband impact jobs and income? Evidence from spatial and first-differenced regressions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 53(3), pages 649-670, November.

    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:46:y:2022:i:7:s0308596122001069. 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.