Role of Digital Economy in Realization of Inclusive Growth

Abstract

Since the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) digital technology has been playing an important role in economic growth leading to a continuous decline in the level of extreme poverty across the globe. while there are opportunities of using the digital revolution to promote inclusive growth, there are risks that technology could further escalate the worsening income distribution, and mitigating such risks will require establishing a sound digital infrastructure and providing digital education to all members of the society. The research adopts a descriptive approach to deal with the prospect of digital technology in promoting inclusive growth and to scrutinize the features of the digital economy, while it deploys a critical approach to discuss the notion of inclusive growth and the ways in which the digital economy may contribute to it. Through the inductive and deductive approaches, the research analyses briefly the Islamic perspectives on the digital economy, prior to concluding with the results such as the benefits of economic growth during the past century were mostly in favor of the higher income groups due to the way in which they were distributed among the factors of production and digital economy can potentially contribute to inclusive growth by breaking down some of the constraints in the traditional production process and by offering digital platforms for sharing economies and earning an income. The research proposes to carry out further inclusive innovations in the digital economy for proposing business models that may serve economically and socially excluded. Keywords; Inclusive Growth, Digital Economy, Fintech.

Keywords

• digital economy
• inclusive growth