رشد اقتصادی، توسعه ارتباطات از راه دور و رشد بهره وری در بخش ارتباطات از راه دور: شواهد و مدارک از سراسر جهان
کد مقاله | سال انتشار | تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی |
---|---|---|
11613 | 2010 | 15 صفحه PDF |
Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)
Journal : Telecommunications Policy, Volume 34, Issue 4, May 2010, Pages 185–199
چکیده انگلیسی
This paper studies the relationships between economic growth, telecommunications development and productivity growth of the telecommunications sector in different countries and regions of the world. In particular, this study assesses the impact of mobile telecommunications on economic growth and telecommunications productivity. The results indicate that there is a bidirectional relationship between real gross domestic product (GDP) and telecommunications development (as measured by teledensity) for European and high-income countries. However, when the impact of mobile telecommunications development on economic growth is measured separately, the bi-directional relationship is no longer restricted to European and high-income countries. This study also finds that countries in the upper-middle income group have achieved a higher average total factor productivity (TFP) growth than other countries. Countries with competition and privatization in telecommunications have achieved a higher TFP growth than those without competition and privatization. The diffusion of mobile telecommunications services is found to be a significant factor that has improved the TFP growth of the telecommunications sector in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
مقدمه انگلیسی
Over the last two decades, the telecommunications sector in many countries has been expanding rapidly. The fast-paced growth of telecommunications services can be explained by a number of factors, such as advancements in telecommunications technology, market liberalization, and privatization. The output of the world's economy has also been growing at a faster rate during the period. In particular, many developing countries and transition economies have experienced rapid growth. It has been widely recognized that advancement in telecommunications technology is one of the driving forces of globalization and the rapid growth of the world's economy. Developments in satellite, optical fibre, mobile technology, the Internet and the World Wide Web have greatly improved global communications and facilitated the exchange of information between different people in the world. Technological innovations in telecommunications have reduced communications costs and facilitated the globalization of production and markets. The main objective of this paper is to study the relationships between economic growth, telecommunications development (in particular mobile telecommunications) and productivity growth in different countries and regions of the world. The study covered in this paper is an extension of the authors’ previous regional studies on China (Lam & Shiu, 2008; Shiu & Lam, 2008). A dynamic panel data model is applied to measure the causal relationship between economic growth and telecommunications development in different countries and regions. The non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach is used to construct the Malmquist Index to measure the total factor productivity (TFP) growth in telecommunications and to identify the sources of TFP growth. The sample in this study covers more than 100 countries. The countries are divided into different sub-groups based on the region and the per capita income. The paper examines whether there are any significant differences in telecommunications development and TFP growth among countries in different regions and at different income levels. Since the early 1990s, there have been a number of studies which measured the causal relationship between economic growth and telecommunications development. There have also been numerous studies which measured telecommunications productivity in different countries and regions. Few of them, however, considered the situations of telecommunications development and productivity growth after 1998. In many countries, telecommunications reform began in 1998 or later. In addition, over the past decade, many countries have also seen explosive growth in mobile telecommunications. The diffusion of mobile telecommunications services has not only facilitated market competition, but also attracted a lot of private investment (both domestic and foreign investment) into the telecommunications sector (see Gruber, 2001; Gruber & Verboven, 2001). The results of previous studies do not capture the impact of telecommunications reform or mobile communications on economic growth and telecommunications productivity. This study is intended to fill the gap by providing a separate assessment of the impact of mobile telecommunications on economic growth and telecommunications productivity. Besides, the sample sizes of many previous studies were also relatively small, and they were often restricted to countries in certain regions (e.g. Asia, Africa, or Eastern Europe) or at similar stages of development (e.g. developing countries or member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)). In the current study, the sample size is larger, and it covers more than 100 countries throughout the world. Hence, the results of this analysis are more comprehensive and provide better information about the relationship between economic growth, telecommunications development and productivity growth in different countries and regions of the world. The structure of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews previous studies on the relationships between economic growth, telecommunications development and productivity growth. Section 3 describes the data and methodology used in this paper. Section 4 reports the empirical findings, and Section 5 provides conclusions and policy implications based on those findings.
نتیجه گیری انگلیسی
5. Conclusion and implications This paper applies a dynamic panel data model to examine the causal relationship between economic growth and telecommunications development. The non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach is used to compute the Malmquist index, which measures the TFP growth in the telecommunications sector. The study covers more than 100 countries at different income levels and in different regions of the world. The overall result of estimation indicates that there is a bidirectional relationship between real GDP and telecommunications development (as measured by teledensity) for European countries and for those belonging to the high-income group, between the period 1980 and 2006. This implies that in these countries, an increase in real GDP raises the demand for telecommunications services, which, in turn, raises real GDP. In less-developed countries, however, the relationship is, in general, unidirectional, that is, it runs from real GDP to teledensity. However, when the impact of mobile telecommunications development on economic growth is measured separately, the bi-directional relationship is no longer restricted to European and high-income countries. The results indicate that mobile telecommunications development is an important driving force of global economic growth in recent years. This study also finds that the average TFP growth is 6.7% per annum for the period 1995–2004, and technological change is the major source of TFP growth. The upper-middle income group has achieved the highest average TFP growth in the period under study. Many of the countries with a double-digit TFP growth are in CEE which have been undergoing a transition towards market economies since the 1990s. As most of the transition economies in CEE are latecomers in telecommunications development, they can deploy the latest technologies (including mobile technology) to develop their nationwide telecommunications networks. This “latecomer's advantage” has allowed them to “leapfrog” over high-income countries in Western Europe and North America and to achieve a higher TFP growth. The results from the second-stage regression analysis have confirmed this “leapfrogging” argument and indicated that the contributions of competition and privatization (particularly the latter) to TFP growth are less significant when compared with the diffusion of mobile telecommunications services.