ABSTRACT

ICT “leapfrogging” is when developing economies adopt the use of technology to jump-start their development agenda. This study positions the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8 to test the leapfrogging hypothesis on eight SAARC economies (Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) from 2000 to 2020. We examine if the hypothesis holds using an unbalanced panel data on real per capita GDP and four ICT indicators (mobile phones, fixed telephones, fixed broadband, and Internet users). We deploy panel spatial correlation consistent (PSCC) and method of moments quantile regression (MM-QR) techniques. The MM-QR offers more reliable results than PSCC because it takes into account the conditional heterogeneity issues that are understated. The general consensus indicates that ICT (individual indicators and composite index) exerts a statistically significant positive effect on economic growth mostly at the 1% level. However, the MM-QR reveals that: (1) the leapfrogging hypothesis holds for mobile phones and composite index models; (2) the hypothesis holds only at the lower quantiles of fixed broadband model; and (3) mobile phones show the largest increasing leapfrogging effect of 0.034%, 0.052%, 0.082%, and 0.099%, respectively. Policy recommendations are discussed.

摘要

ICT“跨越式发展”是指发展中经济体采用技术来启动其发展议程。本研究将 2030 年联合国可持续发展目标 8 定位为检验 2000 年至 2020 年八个南盟经济体（阿富汗、不丹、孟加拉国、印度、马尔代夫、尼泊尔、巴基斯坦和斯里兰卡）的跨越假设。我们检验该假设是否成立使用关于实际人均 GDP 和四个 ICT 指标（移动电话、固定电话、固定宽带和互联网用户）的不平衡面板数据。我们部署了面板空间相关一致性 (PSCC) 和矩分位数回归 (MM-QR) 技术。MM-QR 提供比 PSCC 更可靠的结果，因为它考虑了被低估的条件异质性问题。普遍共识表明，ICT（单项指标和综合指标）对经济增长的积极影响主要在 1% 的水平。然而，MM-QR 揭示：（1）跨越假设适用于手机和综合指数模型；(2) 该假设仅适用于固定宽带模型的较低分位数；（3）手机表现出最大的跨越效应，分别为0.034%、0.052%、0.082%、0.099%。政策建议进行了讨论。（3）手机表现出最大的跨越效应，分别为0.034%、0.052%、0.082%、0.099%。政策建议进行了讨论。（3）手机表现出最大的跨越效应，分别为0.034%、0.052%、0.082%、0.099%。政策建议进行了讨论。