IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/i4rdps/148.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Arrival of Fast Internet and Employment in Africa - Comment

Author

Listed:
  • Roodman, David

Abstract

Hjort and Poulsen (2019) frames the staggered arrival of submarine Internet cables on the shores of Africa circa 2010 as a difference-in-differences natural experiment. The paper finds positive impacts of broadband on individual- and firm-level employment and nighttime light emissions. These results largely are not robust to alternative ge-ocoding of survey locations, to correcting for a satellite changeover at end-2009, and to revisiting a definition of the treated zone that has no clear technological basis, is narrower than the spatial resolution of nearly all the data sources, and is empirically suboptimal as a representation of the geography of broadband.

Suggested Citation

  • Roodman, David, 2024. "The Arrival of Fast Internet and Employment in Africa - Comment," I4R Discussion Paper Series 148, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:148
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/302282/1/I4R-DP148.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben Jann, 2007. "Making regression tables simplified," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(2), pages 227-244, June.
    2. Marco Manacorda & Andrea Tesei, 2020. "Liberation Technology: Mobile Phones and Political Mobilization in Africa," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 533-567, March.
    3. Klonner, Stefan & Nolen, Patrick J., 2010. "Cell Phones and Rural Labor Markets: Evidence from South Africa," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Hannover 2010 56, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    4. repec:lic:licosd:41920 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sergei Guriev & Nikita Melnikov & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2021. "3G Internet and Confidence in Government," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2533-2613.
    6. John Gibson & Susan Olivia & Geua Boe‐Gibson, 2020. "Night Lights In Economics: Sources And Uses," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5), pages 955-980, December.
    7. Masaki, Takaaki & Ochoa, Rogelio Granguillhome & Rodriguez Castelan, Carlos, 2020. "Broadband Internet and Household Welfare in Senegal," IZA Discussion Papers 13658, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Robert M. Gonzalez, 2021. "Cell Phone Access and Election Fraud: Evidence from a Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design in Afghanistan," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 1-51, April.
    9. Daniel Bischof, 2017. "New graphic schemes for Stata: plotplain and plottig," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(3), pages 748-759, September.
    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. Marco Manacorda & Guido Tabellini & Andrea Tesei, 2022. "Mobile internet and the rise of political tribalism in Europe," CEP Discussion Papers dp1877, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Joël Cariolle & Yasmine Elkhateeb & Mathilde Maurel, 2022. "(Mis-)information technology: Internet use and perception of democracy in Africa," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22010, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    3. Tähtinen, Tuuli, 2024. "When Facebook Is the Internet: The Role of Social Media in Ethnic Conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    4. Donati, Dante, 2023. "Mobile Internet access and political outcomes: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    5. David Roodman, 2022. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Comment," Papers 2207.09036, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    6. Kun Heo & Antoine Zerbini, 2024. "Segment and rule: Modern censorship in authoritarian regimes," Discussion Papers 2024-04, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    7. Marco Manacorda & Guido Tabellini & Andrea Tesei, 2022. "Mobile Internet and the Rise of Communitarian Politics," CESifo Working Paper Series 9955, CESifo.
    8. repec:zbw:itse22:265632 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Angelo D’Andrea & Patrick Hitayezu & Mr. Kangni R Kpodar & Nicola Limodio & Mr. Andrea F Presbitero, 2024. "Mobile Internet, Collateral, and Banking," IMF Working Papers 2024/070, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Cariolle, Joël & Elkhateeb, Yasmine & Maurel, Mathilde, 2024. "Misinformation technology: Internet use and political misperceptions in Africa," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 400-433.
    11. Gisli Gylfason, 2023. "From Tweets to the Streets: Twitter and Extremist Protests in the United States," PSE Working Papers halshs-04188189, HAL.
    12. Gonzalez, Robert & Maffioli, Elisa M., 2024. "Is the phone mightier than the virus? Cellphone access and epidemic containment efforts," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    13. Mensah,Justice Tei & Hirfrfot,Kibrom Tafere & Abay,Kibrom A., 2022. "Saving Lives through Technology : Mobile Phones and Infant Mortality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9978, The World Bank.
    14. Leonardo Bursztyn & Georgy Egorov & Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova, 2019. "Social Media and Xenophobia: Evidence from Russia," NBER Working Papers 26567, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Joël Cariolle & Florian Léon, 2022. "How internet helped firms cope with COVID-19 [Comment internet a aidé les entreprises à faire face à la Covid-19]," Post-Print hal-03606071, HAL.
    16. Caldarola, Bernardo & Grazzi, Marco & Occelli, Martina & Sanfilippo, Marco, 2023. "Mobile internet, skills and structural transformation in Rwanda," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(10).
    17. Pierre C. Boyer & Thomas Delemotte & Germain Gauthier & Vincent Rollet & Benoît Schmutz, 2020. "Social Media and the Dynamics of Protests," CESifo Working Paper Series 8326, CESifo.
    18. Vladimir Avetian, 2022. "Essays in economics of discrimination and diversity [Essais sur l’économie de la discrimination et de la diversité]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03858054, HAL.
    19. Houngbonon,Georges Vivien & Mensah,Justice Tei & Traore,Nouhoum-000531164, 2022. "The Impact of Internet Access on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9945, The World Bank.
    20. Francisco Fernández López, 2017. "Impacto de la informalidad laboral sobre el acceso a crédito formal," Coyuntura Económica, Fedesarrollo, vol. 47(1 y 2), pages 169-204, December.
    21. Gabriel Aboyadana & Marco Alfano, 2021. "Perceived Temperature, Trust and Civil Unrest in Africa," HiCN Working Papers 344, Households in Conflict Network.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:i4rdps:148. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.i4replication.org/ .

    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.