The Impact of Internet on Economic Growth in Africa

Abstract

The objective of this study is to estimate the effect of internet on economic growth in Africa as this region has recently been a rapidly growing number of internet users as well as high economic growth. Using the constructed panel data set of 19 African countries from 2003 to 2014 and employing the Fixed Effect-Iterated Generalized Least Square (FE-IGLS) estimation to correct for autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity, the results show no spurious regression problem.   It indicated that internet has an impact on economic growth when it is complementary with physical capital and technology.  Our main finding suggests that African governments should support their children to enter in education higher than secondary level and encourage labor using internet to boost up their knowledge.