Broadband Infrastructure And Economic Growth

The authors estimate the effect of broadband infrastructure, which enables high-speed internet, on economic growth in the panel of OECD countries in 1996-2007. The instrumental-variable model derives its non-linear first stage from a logistic diffusion model where pre-existing voice-telephony and cable-TV networks predict maximum broadband penetration. They find that a 10 percentage-point increase in broadband penetration raises annual per-capita growth by 0.9-1.5 percentage points. Results are robust to country and year fixed effects and controlling for linear second-stage effects of the instruments.