ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT REPORTS: CENTER FOR DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH

This Center at the University of Bonn has published a number of interesting working papers online.

The Role of ICT for the Performance of SMEs in East Africa: Empirical Evidence from Kenya and Tanzania
From the Abstract: "Our sample of 300 SMEs in East Africa shows that the use of ICT by SMEs in Kenya as well as in Tanzania is increasing over time. The usage of fixed phone lines nearly reaches the saturation point but is still lower in Tanzania than in Kenya. The percentage of firms that uses mobile phones is increasing fast in both countries. Especially in Tanzania, despite its late start only in 1994 it has already outgrown the usage of fax machines. Those enterprises that use different forms of ICT rate their effects mostly positive. On top are computer applications that are assumed by 88 % and 76 % of users to considerably increase management efficiency and competitiveness respectively. Mobile phones are considered to contribute significantly to regional market expansion by most enterprises, followed by fixed phones and faxes. For all sectors in both countries the average size of enterprises is generally bigger for users of more advanced ICTs. The average years of schooling also increase with the use of advanced ICTs with only small differences between sectors. Also with respect to exporting the relation with ICT is positive and similar for all sectors. By regressing a Cobb-Douglas production function on a dataset of Kenyan and Tanzanian enterprises we analyse determinants of productivity. Our main empirical findings are that investment in ICT has a negative sign in different specifications of the regression but is never significant. However, the use of fax machines that gives managers access to formal information has a significant positive relationship with productivity in both countries." By Francis Matambalya and Susanna Wolf, December 2001. (PDF, 35 pages.)

Willingness to Pay for the Rural Telephone Service in Bangladesh
Abstract: This paper measures the rural households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for access to public telephone services in Bangladesh and Peru through contingent valuation methods. The development of contingent valuation methods together with the econometric expansion of qualitative response models has permitted an approximation to the consumer surplus in the presence of externalities, public good and information asymmetries. The paper utilizes both parametric and nonparametric estimations that are commonly observed in the literature concerned with the estimation of WTP. The main result of the paper suggest that rural telecommunications projects are welfare enhancing, since households’ WTP are higher than the prevailing tariff rates. For Peru, households’ currently pay US$0.14 for local calls and US$ 0.29 for national long distance calls (LDN), while their WTP for a local call varies from US$0.25 to US$0.35, and for a LDN call varies from US$0.33 to US$0.45. For Bangladesh, households’ WTP for a local call varies from US$0.10 to US$0.26, for a LDN call from US$0.23 to US$0.50, and for an international call from US$0.93 to US$1.35. Meanwhile, they are currently paying US$ 0.03, US$ 0.06 and US$ 0.46 respectively. Despite the fact that the monetary measures of WTP vary depending on measurement methods, the results are consistent for all the parametric and non-parametric measures utilized suggesting that the rural telecommunications projects in Bangladesh and Peru are directly contributing to the improvement of welfare of rural households.” By Maximo Torero, Shyamal K Chowdhury, and Virgilio Galdo, October 2002. (PDF, 51 pages.)

The Access and Welfare Impacts of Telecommunications Technology in PeruFrom the Abstract: “This paper attempts to assess three main issues on Peruvian telecommunications technology: what are the main variables that explain the demand for access to telephone services; how important is access to telephone services in explaining the transition out of poverty, and what are the consumption and welfare impacts of the significant increase in the supply of telephone lines since the divestiture in 1994 of the Peruvian telephone services.” By Maximo Torero, July 2000. (PDF, 38 pages.)

Information Technology and Exports: A Case Study of Indian Garments Manufacturing Enterprises
Abstract: “This study identifies and analyses the factors that influence the export performance of Indian garments manufacturing firms. The data come from a sample of seventy-four firms located in Okhla. The results show that intensity of adoption of Information Technology (IT) was the most significant variable that influenced the export performance of firms. The other variables that played an important role in augmenting the export intensity were quality of raw material and the wage rate. The results show that Managing Directors of export- oriented firms assigned more importance to flexibility in product designs. The study suggests that a higher degree of adoption of IT by Indian firms is crucial to remain internationally competitive. The use of advanced IT tools will be even more relevant once the WTO recommendations are in place.” By K. Lal, August 1999. (PDF, 29 pages.)

The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in Economic Development - A Partial Survey
Abstract: “The diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their potential as a development tool have generated a wide array of views. The variety of views suggests that the role and impact of these technologies are still obscure and that the debate regarding them suffers from a lack of unambiguous evidence. Recognizing the need for clarity, the author endeavors in this paper to answer three questions: first, what features distinguish these technologies from those invented in the past; second, what are the channels through which ICTs are expected to promote development, and finally, what justifies the confidence placed in ICTs as a development tool, that is, is there empirical evidence supporting the claims made for or against the use and spread of these technologies? By A. Bedi, May 1999. (PDF. 45 pages.)