Institutional quality determinants of ICT adoption in Arab countries : empirical study

Abstract

This study aims to search for the institutional quality determinants of information and communication technology diffusion in the Arab countries during the period from 2003 to 2018. To doing so, this paper uses the data of 21 Arab countries for the dependent variable "information technology": mobile cellular subscriptions, fixed-telephone subscriptions and fixed broadband subscriptions, and for the independent variables "institutional quality determinants": voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption, through estimation and comparison between the Panel Data models: pooled regression model, fixed effects model, and the random effects model. The results show that the determinants of, fixed-telephone subscriptions are regulatory quality, and that the determinants mobile-cellular subscriptions are voice and accountability, politicalstability and absence of violence, and control of corruption. The study also founds that the determinants of fixed broadband subscriptions are : voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, regulatory quality, government effectiveness and control of corruption