Bridging the digital divide - how enterprise ownership and foreign competition affect Internet access in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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Bridging the digital divide - how enterprise ownership and foreign competition affect Internet access in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Volume 1

Author:	Clarke, George R.G.;	Collection Title:	Policy, Research working paper ; no. WPS 2629
Country:	Europe and Central Asia;	Date Stored:	2001/08/10
Document Date:	2001/07/31	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Major Sector:	(Historic)Private Sector Development
Region:	Europe and Central Asia	Report Number:	WPS2629
Sub Sectors:	Business Environment	SubTopics:	Knowledge Economy; Environmental Economics & Policies; Economic Theory & Research; Banks & Banking Reform; General Technology; Education for the Knowledge Economy
Volume No:	1

Summary: Many observers attributed the rapid productivity growth observed in the United States in the mid- to late 1990s, to the growing use of information, and the Internet. This in turn created concern that developing, and transition economies - where use of information technology, and the Internet was less widespread - would be left behind as productivity, and growth accelerated in technologically advanced countries, and stagnated elsewhere. Using enterprise-level data from twelve transition economies, the author looks at factors that affect whether enterprises in these countries are connected to the Internet. He finds that foreign-owned enterprises are more likely to have Internet access than other enterprises. And that employee-owned enterprises are less likely to have access. Even after controlling for other factors that might affect Internet connectivity, the quality of a country's telecommunications infrastructure appears to have a significant effect on the likelihood that an enterprise in that country has Internet access. Reducing corruption, and taking other steps to improve the business environment, would benefit domestic economies, even if Internet access had little short-term impact on productivity, or growth.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 34 pages	Official version*	2.38 (approx.)
	Text	Text version**


Light-Weight Documents Lighter (less MB) documents which may or may not be the final, official version
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 29 pages	WPS2629	17.53

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

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