Inequality Measures Applied to the Diffusion of Mobile Communications within the European Union

Mobile communications has recently been popular in innovation diffusion studies: Researchers have conducted studies on a nation, a multi-nation, and on a worldwide level. However, although some of the diffusion studies have examined cross-country diffusion processes, there is a lack of research investigating how the disparity of diffusion processes of a given set of countries has evolved. The aim of this study is to empirically measure, whether the diffusion of mobile communications in the European Union has converged or diverged. In this study, this process is quantified by penetration rates of mobile communications subscribers. Subsequently, the annual dispersion is captured by appliance of inequality measures: It is first depicted by Lorenz curves and subsequently measured by GINI coefficients. The tentative results of the study indicate a clear tendency of equalization, measured by the Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients: Thus, the European Union member countries have converged in terms of mobile communications penetration, as foreseen by the learning effect. Key-words: Mobile communications, innovation diffusion, European Union, inequality measures