Broadband Beats Mobile Phones in Boosting GDP

Mobile phones are a ticket out of poverty for millions. No argument there. But check out this global ICT study by Christine Zhen-Wei Qiang, an economist at the World Bank for a surprising comparison with broadband Internet.

She found that for every 10 percentage points increase in broadband penetration, there is an incremental increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points. This compares to the 0.8 percent increase for mobile phones. I would not have expected such a great differential - almost a 2x greater GDP boost via broadband than mobiles.

http://ow.ly/1gn96


Marco Zennaro
Aeronomy and Radiopropagation Laboratory
the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
Strada Costiera 11
34014 Trieste
Italy

Telephone:    +39 040 2240 406
E-mail:             mzennaro@ictp.it