Examining the ICT access effect on socioeconomic development: the moderating role of ICT use and skills

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play in the socioeconomic development of countries. The proposed model analyzes the relationship between ICT access (available ICT infrastructure and individual’s access to ICT), ICT use (ICT intensity and usage, and ICT skills), and socioeconomic development. The methodology employed consists of a Structural Equation Model (SEM). To achieve this goal, country-level data across 163 countries for the year 2013 is used from developing to developed countries. Results obtained indicate the moderating role of ICT use and skills in the relationship between ICT access and the socioeconomic development. The ICT usage and ICT skills enhance the effect of ICT access on the socioeconomic development. The model is robust with respect to the development level.

KEYWORDS:

• ICT access
• ICT use
• socioeconomic development
• moderator variable

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

María Verónica Alderete has a Ph.D. in Economics (Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina). She is an Assistant Researcher of CONICET, at IIESS (Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur)-CONICET, Universidad Nacional del Sur. Besides, she is a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Economics, Universidad Nacional del Sur. Her research interests are Information society, Economy of small and medium sized enterprises, Clusters, Entrepreneurship and Local development.

Notes

1. The reader can ask the author for more information. Since this is not the main objective of the paper, the results were not included.