State of Digital Economy in Asia-Pacific Region : Delineating the Role of Digital Skill

The paper seeks to examine the cross-country variation in the state of digital economy in Asia-Pacific region. In addition, this paper also identifies the role played by the digital skill in fostering the development of the digital economy in the Asia-Pacific region using secondary data of 43 Asia-Pacific countries over 2012 to 2017. K-means clustering approach and panel regression method were used for the purpose of analysis of data. The outcome of the study revealed stark variations in use, access, and overall digital economy amongst the Asia-Pacific countries signifying the prevalence of digital inequality. The findings of the study highlighted that secondary and tertiary education as the proxies of digital skill exerted significant positive effect on the development of digital economy. However, the effect of tertiary education was found to be stronger than that of the secondary education. The outcome of the study also identified income level to be affecting the development digital economy