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Costs or gross benefits? - What mainly drives cross-sectional variance in Internet adoption

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  • Drouard, Joeffrey

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an empirical model of Internet adoption which takes into account the household's desire to adopt the Internet. Our research supports three central findings. First, we determine the main factors that explain the cross-sectional variance in gross benefits. Second, we estimate the predicted probabilities that a household does not desire to adopt the Internet and that a household desires to adopt the Internet but does not because its adoption costs are higher than its gross benefits. We show that while the cross-sectional variance in the first predicted probability is high, the cross-sectional variance in the second one is low (except for the age factor). Third, we compute the predicted adoption probability assuming that the adoption costs are homogeneous across households. We show that, for a given dimension (except for the age factor), the adoption rate will be only slightly modified if the adoption costs are homogeneous across households. Our results support the argument that the digital divide is mainly due to differences in gross benefits of adoption.

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  • Drouard, Joeffrey, 2011. "Costs or gross benefits? - What mainly drives cross-sectional variance in Internet adoption," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 127-140, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iepoli:v:23:y:2011:i:1:p:127-140
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    4. Thierry PENARD & Nicolas POUSSING & Gabriel ZOMO YEBE & Philémon NSI ELLA, 2012. "Comparing the Determinants of Internet and Cell Phone Use in Africa: Evidence from Gabon," Communications & Strategies, IDATE, Com&Strat dept., vol. 1(86), pages 65-83, 2nd quart.
    5. Silva, Simone & Badasyan, Narine & Busby, Michael, 2018. "Diversity and digital divide: Using the National Broadband Map to identify the non-adopters of broadband," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 361-373.
    6. PENARD Thierry & POUSSING Nicolas & ZOMO YEBE Gabriel & NSI ELLA Philémon, 2012. "Usage d'Internet et du téléphone mobile en Afrique : une comparaison des déterminants d'adoption sur données gabonaises," LISER Working Paper Series 2012-15, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
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    8. Trevor Roycroft, 2013. "Empirical study of broadband adoption using data from the 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 214-228, April.
    9. Charlita de Freitas, Luciano & Couto Rampaso, Renato & Euler de Morais, Leonardo, 2011. "Uso da banda larga via satélite para universalização do acesso à banda larga e como indutor de redução das desigualdades regionais [Satellite based broadband use as a strategy to access universaliz," MPRA Paper 85686, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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