Knowledge-Based Economic Development: Mass Media and the Weightless Economy

We examine associations of mass media and information and communicationstechnologies (ICT) as knowledge-based infrastructures on some economicdevelopment outcomes. We .nd that several mass media and ICT penetration variablesare negatively associated with three development outcomes: corruption, inequalityand poverty. Of the media variables, newspapers are observed to have a robustnegative association with both corruption and inequality. Radios and TVs are alsoobserved to have a robust negative association with inequality and poverty. ICTs andtelephony infrastructures.association with corruption, inequality and poverty aremixed. There is some robust evidence of the negative association of ICT expenditureswith corruption. An ICT index is constructed, which also has a negative associationwith corruption. ICTs association with inequality varies with the sample chosen - it ispositively associated with inequality for the sample with both developed anddeveloping countries, but negatively associated with inequality for the developingcountry sample. Finally, ICT expenditure is negatively associated with poverty.[...]