IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v42y2010i15p1889-1905.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A need for speed? Rural Internet connectivity and the no access/dial-up/high-speed decision

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Whitacre
  • Bradford Mills

Abstract

As residential high-speed Internet access has become more prevalent, the nature of the rural-urban digital divide in access has shifted. In 2000, dial-up access rates in rural households lagged behind their urban counterparts by 11 percentage points. By 2003, however, dial-up access rates were equal in rural and urban areas, but high-speed access rates were 14 percentage points higher in urban areas. This article uses a nested logit model to explore the household decision between no Internet access, dial-up access and high-speed access. A decomposition technique is then used to estimate the contributions of various factors, including education, income and infrastructure levels, to differences in Internet access among rural and urban households. The results suggest that policies which solely promote infrastructure in rural areas fail to address the dominant factors in the emerging high-speed digital divide.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Whitacre & Bradford Mills, 2010. "A need for speed? Rural Internet connectivity and the no access/dial-up/high-speed decision," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(15), pages 1889-1905.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:42:y:2010:i:15:p:1889-1905
    DOI: 10.1080/00036840701749001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840701749001
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036840701749001?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hausman, Jerry & McFadden, Daniel, 1984. "Specification Tests for the Multinomial Logit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(5), pages 1219-1240, September.
    2. Hensher, David A. & Greene, William H., 2002. "Specification and estimation of the nested logit model: alternative normalisations," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 1-17, January.
    3. Bradford F. Mills & Brian E. Whitacre, 2003. "Understanding the Non‐Metropolitan—Metropolitan Digital Divide," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 219-243, June.
    4. Mark Drabenstott, 2001. "New Policies for a New Rural America," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 24(1), pages 3-15, January.
    5. Tony H. Grubesic & Alan T. Murray, 2004. "Waiting for Broadband: Local Competition and the Spatial Distribution of Advanced Telecommunication Services in the United States," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 139-165, March.
    6. Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 1998. "Discrimination and detailed decomposition in a logit model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 115-120, October.
    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. Waqas Shair & Tatheer Zahra & Muhammad Tayyab & Neelam Kubra, 2022. "The Impact of the Digital Divide on Wage Gaps among Individuals in Pakistan," Journal of Policy Research (JPR), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 8(4), pages 97-107, December.
    2. 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).
    3. Jitendra Parajuli & Kingsley E. Haynes, 2017. "Broadband and narrowband Internet in Nepal," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 85-97, April.
    4. Xose Picatoste & Anabela Mesquita & Fernando González-Laxe, 2023. "Gender wage gap, quality of earnings and gender digital divide in the European context," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 301-321, May.

    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. Judith Yates & Gavin Wood, 2005. "Affordable Rental Housing: Lost, Stolen and Strayed," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(s1), pages 82-95, August.
    2. Siedschlag, Iulia & Smith, Donal & Turcu, Camelia & Zhang, Xiaoheng, 2009. "What Determines the Attractiveness of the European Union to the Location of R&D Multinational Firms?," Papers WP306, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    3. Grubesic, Tony H., 2006. "A spatial taxonomy of broadband regions in the United States," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 423-448, November.
    4. Margarita Billon & Roberto Ezcurra & Fernando Lera‐López, 2009. "Spatial Effects in Website Adoption by Firms in European Regions," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 54-84, March.
    5. Siedschlag, Iulia & Smith, Donal & Turcu, Camelia & Zhang, Xiaoheng, 2013. "What determines the location choice of R&D activities by multinational firms?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(8), pages 1420-1430.
    6. Mavra Stithou & Stephen Hynes & Nick Hanley & Danny Campbell, 2012. "Estimating the Value of Achieving “Good Ecological Status”in the Boyne River Catchmentin Ireland Using Choice Experiments," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(3), pages 397-422.
    7. Whitacre, Brian E. & Mills, Bradford F., 2002. "Understanding The Rural - Urban Digital Divide," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19743, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    8. Youssef M. Aboutaleb & Moshe Ben-Akiva & Patrick Jaillet, 2020. "Learning Structure in Nested Logit Models," Papers 2008.08048, arXiv.org.
    9. Martin Wittenberg, 2007. "Dissecting post-apartheid labour market developments: Decomposing a discrete choice model while dealing with unobservables," Working Papers 046, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    10. Biniam E. Bedasso, 2015. "How Does Human Capital Shape the Social Contract?," Working Papers 46, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    11. Whitacre, Brian E. & Mahasuweerachai, Phumsith, 2008. "“Small” Broadband Providers and Federal Assistance Programs: Solving the Digital Divide?," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 38(3), pages 1-15.
    12. Pereira, Pedro & Ribeiro, Tiago, 2011. "The impact on broadband access to the Internet of the dual ownership of telephone and cable networks," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 283-293, March.
    13. Gauri, Dinesh Kumar & Trivedi, Minakshi & Grewal, Dhruv, 2008. "Understanding the Determinants of Retail Strategy: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 256-267.
    14. Erik Stam & Roy Thurik & Peter van der Zwan, 2010. "Entrepreneurial exit in real and imagined markets," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(4), pages 1109-1139, August.
    15. Karing’u kelvin Njuguna & Hezron Nyarindo Isaboke & Samuel Njiri Ndirangu, 2022. "Determinants of smallholders’ choice of avocado marketing outlets and profitability in Murang’a County, Kenya," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(8), pages 1-25, August.
    16. Sakaue, Katsuki, 2018. "Informal fee charge and school choice under a free primary education policy: Panel data evidence from rural Uganda," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 112-127.
    17. Illichmann, R. & Abdulai, A., 2014. "Analysis of Consumer Preferences and Wilingness-To-Pay for Organic Food Products in Germany," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 49, March.
    18. Tao, Hung-Lin, 2014. "Height, weight, and entry earnings of female graduates in Taiwan," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 85-98.
    19. Toşa, Cristian & Sato, Hitomi & Morikawa, Takayuki & Miwa, Tomio, 2018. "Commuting behavior in emerging urban areas: Findings of a revealed-preferences and stated-intentions survey in Cluj-Napoca, Romania," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 78-93.
    20. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2016. "Switching from fossil fuel to renewables in residential heating systems: An empirical study of homeowners' decisions in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 95-105.

    More about this item

    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:taf:applec:v:42:y:2010:i:15:p:1889-1905. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.