Government Quality Determinants of ICT Adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study investigates government quality determinants of ICT adoption using Generalised Method of Moments on a panel of 49 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 2000-2012. ICT is measured with mobile phone penetration, internet penetration and telephone penetration rates while all governance dimensions from the World Bank Governance Indicators are considered, namely: political governance (consisting of political stability and “voice & accountability”); economic governance (entailing government effectiveness and regulation quality) and institutional governance (encompassing the rule of law and corruption-control). The following findings are established. First, political stability and the rule of law have positive short run and negative long term effects on mobile phone penetration. Second, the rule of law has a positive (negative) short run (long term) effect on internet penetration. Third, government effectiveness and corruption-control have positive short run and long term effects on telephone penetration. Institutional governance appears to be most significant in determining ICT adoption in SSA