ICT and Economic Development:Conclusion from IO Analysis for Selected ASEAN Member States

The impact of information and communications technology (ICT) on economic performance has been an interesting issue in economics. There are at least three key points that can be learnt from the previous literatures regarding ICT and country’s economic performance. First, more developed countries are expected to benefit greater than less developed countries. Second, the impact of ICT will depend on the intensity of ICT utilization. Third, the size and structure of ICT sector of country’s economy does matter. The main contribution of this paper is to evaluate those three points by conducting comparative analysis based on Input-Output (I-O) Table from four ASEAN Member States, namely Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. ASEAN is used because it is one of the regional associations that have a large income gap among its members. The results suggest that more developed countries (which are measured by income per capita) do not always benefit greater than less developed countries from ICT development. The magnitude of ICT impact on the economy depends on the intensity of ICT utilization and the structure of ICT sector