Information and Communication Technologies for Development and Poverty Reduction: The Potential of Telecommunications

Nineteen papers examine the driving forces affecting the supply of and demand for information and communication technologies (ICT). Papers discuss telecommunications infrastructure and economic growth--a cross-country analysis (Maximo Torero, Shyamal K. Chowdhury, and Arjun S. Bedi); institutional and public policy aspects of ICT infrastructure provision (Torero and Joachim von Braun); telecommunications privatization in Peru (Torero); public-private partnership initiated by aid in Laos (Gi-Soon Song); leadership from nongovernmental organizations in Bangladesh (Chowdhury and Abdul Bayes); competition without privatization in China (Wensheng Wang); institutional trends and infrastructural developments in telecommunications in sub-Saharan Africa--the case of Ghana (Romeo Bertolini); the economic effects of ICT at firm levels (Song and Dietrich Mueller-Falcke); the impact of ICT on small enterprises--the case of small-scale industry in India (Mueller-Falcke); whether the use of ICT improves the productivity of small- and medium-sized enterprises in East Africa--the case of Kenya and Tanzania (Francis A. S. T. Matambalya and Susanna Wolf); the impact of telecommunications on rural enterprises in Laos (Bedi and Song); ICT and export performance--the case of garment manufacturing enterprises in India (Kaushalesh Lal); the impacts of ICT on low-income rural households (Torero and von Braun); the impact of public telephones in rural areas in Peru (Virgilio Galdo and Torero); the benefits of rural telecommunications in Laos (Song and Bedi); implications of access to public telephones in rural Bangladesh (Chowdhury); farmers, incomes, and the use of telephones in rural China (Wang); the effects of public telephone services in rural Ghana (Bertolini); and ICT for pro-poor provision of public goods and services--a focus on health (Maja Micevska).

Johns Hopkins University Press and IFPRI, (2006)