Computer Literacy, Online Experience or Socioeconomic Characteristics - What are the Main Determinants of Broadband Internet Adoption and Internet Usage?

In this paper, we analyze the broadband Internet adoption/usage decisions. To this end, we estimate a sample selection model. In the first stage, we analyze whether the individuals have adopted broadband Internet; in the second stage, we analyze the Internet usage diversity given adoption. We show that low income and less-educated people are less likely to have adopted broadband Internet, but they do not have a less diversified Internet usage given adoption. Furthermore, after controlling for a set of socioeconomic factors and the computer skills, we show that online experience is a powerful determinant of usage diversity