Investigating the Impact of ICT Investments on Human Development

In the last two decades, the worldwide information and communication technology (ICT) market has been growing at a rapid rate. This has led to a global net increase in ICT investments and usage. International organizations, ICT vendors and policy makers have been investigating whether such large investments are worthwhile. The results regarding this issue are inconclusive, for this research area is fraught with complexity, and existing empirical work is limited. This study investigates the impact of ICT investments on human development. Of particular interest are the relationships between different dimensions of ICT investment and the components of human development. ICT investments can be thought of as having four dimensions – hardware, software, internal spending and telecommunication investment, while typical human development indicators are standard of living (GDP per capita), education (literacy and school enrolments) and health (life expectancy). If these variables are not modelled correctly, their effect on each other can be either under‐ or overestimated. In this article, the line of enquiry from a study by Kim et al. (2008) is extended to investigate the relationship between the four aspects of ICT investments and the three key components of human development. The empirical analysis shows that the four dimensions of ICT investment have an impact in various ways on the components of human development, and that these impacts are different, in high income, mid income and low income countries. Based on these findings, this study suggests theoretical propositions to explain the impact of ICT investments on human development.

[1]  Farid Shirazi,et al.  Do Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Trade Openness Explain the Disparity in ICT Diffusion between Asia-Pacific and the Islamic Middle Eastern Countries? , 2010, J. Glob. Inf. Manag..

[2]  Sean Kehoe,et al.  Recombinase technology: applications and possibilities , 2010, Plant Cell Reports.

[3]  Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama,et al.  Factors affecting ICT expansion in emerging economies: An analysis of ICT infrastructure expansion in five Latin American countries , 2009, Inf. Technol. Dev..

[4]  Yong Jin Kim,et al.  Differential effects of IT investments: Complementarity and effect of GDP level , 2008, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[5]  Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama,et al.  Are ICT investments paying off in Africa? An analysis of total factor productivity in six West African countries from 1995 to 2002 , 2008 .

[6]  Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson,et al.  An exploration of the effects of the interaction between ICT and labor force on economic growth in transition economies , 2008 .

[7]  Mark McGillivray,et al.  Concept and Measurement , 2008 .

[8]  Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama,et al.  Unraveling the Impact of Investments in ICT, Education and Health on Development: An Analysis of Archival Data of Five West African Countries Using Regression Splines , 2007, Electron. J. Inf. Syst. Dev. Ctries..

[9]  IivariJuhani,et al.  The relationship between organizational culture and the deployment of systems development methodologies , 2007 .

[10]  Irwin Brown,et al.  Global Diffusion of the Internet XI: Internet Diffusion and Its Determinants in South Africa: The First Decade of Democracy (1994 - 2004) and Beyond , 2007, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[11]  Shirley Gregor,et al.  The Nature of Theory in Information Systems , 2006, MIS Q..

[12]  Felix Bollou,et al.  ICT Infrastructure Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Analysis of Six West African Countries from 1995 to 2002 , 2006 .

[13]  F. Bollou.  ICT Infrastructure Expansion in Sub‐Saharan Africa: An Analysis of Six West African Countries from 1995 to 2002 , 2006, Electron. J. Inf. Syst. Dev. Ctries..

[14]  Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama,et al.  Is There A Relationship Between ICT, Health, Education And Development? An Empirical Analysis of five West African Countries from 1997–2003 , 2006, Electron. J. Inf. Syst. Dev. Ctries..

[15]  R. Vickerman,et al.  The Interplay Between Foreign Direct Investment, Security and European Integration: The Case of the Central and Eastern European Countries , 2005 .

[16]  Terry Anthony Byrd,et al.  The Neglected Continent of IS Research: A Research Agenda for Sub-Saharan Africa , 2005, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[17]  Mudiarasan Kuppusamy,et al.  Investment in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and its Payoff in Malaysia , 2005 .

[18]  Heidi Ertl,et al.  From the digital divide to digital opportunities : measuring infostates for development , 2005 .

[19]  Peter G. Mwesige.  Cyber elites: a survey of Internet Cafe' users in Uganda , 2004, Telematics Informatics.

[20]  C. Qiang,et al.  Contribution of information and communication technologies to growth , 2003 .

[21]  Lisa J. Servon.  Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy , 2002 .

[22]  Francesco Daveri,et al.  The New Economy in Europe (1992-2001) , 2002 .

[23]  Matti Pohjola,et al.  Cross-country diffusion of the Internet , 2002, Inf. Econ. Policy.

[24]  Matti Pohjola,et al.  Economic growth in the New Economy: evidence from advanced economies , 2002, Inf. Econ. Policy.

[25]  A. Colecchia,et al.  ICT Investment and Economic Growth in the 1990s: Is the United States a Unique Case? A Comparative Study of Nine OECD Countries , 2002 .

[26]  Lisa J. Servon.  Bridging the Digital Divide , 2002 .

[27]  Bart van Ark,et al.  ICT investments and growth accounts for the European Union , 2002 .

[28]  Juhani Iivari,et al.  The Relationship Between Organisational Culture and the Deployment of Systems Development Methodologies , 2001, CAiSE.

[29]  N. Oulton.  ICT and Productivity Growth in the United Kingdom , 2001 .

[30]  情報サービス産業協会国際部.  国際 Digital Planet 2000: The Global Information Economy(抄訳) , 2001 .

[31]  K. Stiroh.  Information Technology and the U.S. Productivity Revival: What Do the Industry Data Say? , 2001 .

[32]  K. Kraemer,et al.  : Evidence from , 2022 .

[33]  David Canning,et al.  The Health and Wealth of Nations , 2000, Science.

[34]  Eunice Hsiao-hui Wang,et al.  ICT and economic development in Taiwan: analysis of the evidence , 1999 .

[35]  C. Avgerou.  How can IT enable economic growth in developing countries , 1998 .

[36]  N. Maxwell.  The health and wealth of the nation. , 1994, Nursing standard (Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain) : 1987).

[37]  Peter J. Smith.  Measuring Human Development , 1993 .

[38]  David A. Belsley.  Two- or three-stage least squares? , 1988 .

[39]  Abraham Charnes,et al.  Measuring the efficiency of decision making units , 1978 .

[40]  A. Koutsoyiannis.  Three-stage Least Squares , 1977 .

[41]  Estimated Residual Covariance Matrix of Two Stage Least Squares and Computation of Three Stage Least Squares Estimates , 1974 .

[42]  A. Strauss,et al.  The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research aldine de gruyter , 1968 .

[43]  H. Theil,et al.  Three-Stage Least Squares: Simultaneous Estimation of Simultaneous Equations , 1962 .