Internet Education and Economic Growth: Evidence from Cross-Country Regressions

Abstract

The effects of Internet education on economic growth are examined using a cross-section of 36 high-income countries. Internet usage rates are employed as a proxy for Internet education across countries. Regression results show that the frequent usage of the Internet has a positive and significant effect on economic growth. The estimated growth effect of Internet skills is also found to be greater than the growth effect of math and science skills. The results are, in general, robust across model specifications.

Keywords

• Internet usage rates
• economic growth
• human capital
• schooling
• convergence hypothesis