Does ICT access and usage reduce growth inefficiency in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Désiré Avom, Gilles Dufrénot () and Sylvie Eyeffa
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Désiré Avom: University of Yaoundé II-SOA, Centre de Recherche en Economie et Gestion (CEREG), Cameroun, https://ferdi.fr/biographies/desire-avom
Gilles Dufrénot: Aix-Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France & CEPII, https://www.amse-aixmarseille.fr/en/members/dufrenot
Sylvie Eyeffa: University of Yaoundé II-SOA, Centre de Recherche en Economie et Gestion (CEREG), Cameroun, http://cereg.cm/

No 2306, AMSE Working Papers from Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France

Abstract: This paper investigates whether or not the access to and use of ICT can help African countries reduce their growth inefficiencies. Inefficiency is measured, on the one hand, by the gap between a country's growth rate and its own frontier, and on the other hand by the relative position of each country compared to the best achievers. We find that if countries were doing a better job of controlling corruption and improving citizen participation in politics, they would achieve higher growth efficiency performance by using ICT. When countries are compared with each other, considering the growth "frontier" as countries in the sample, then growth differentials are explained primarily by non-ICT factors of growth (human capital, schooling rates, capital growth rates, etc.). The role of ICT factors is secondary. But they contribute to growth to a greater extent for the best achievers (compared to the lowest and middle achievers) because they are better endowed with ICT factors than the others.

Keywords: ICT; African countries; growth inefficiency; frontier; quantiles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O32 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict
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