MOBILE BROADBAND AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The scale of diffusion of mobile wireless broadband technology and its transformational effect across all sectors of the economy cannot be over emphasised. It enables the creation of new business processes/product innovation, thereby boosting job creation, as well as raising economic growth and productivity. This suggests that the mobile broadband is a general-purpose technology capable of producing a protracted critical mass effect at a certain threshold of penetration. It is against this backdrop that this paper examines the impact of mobile broadband on economic growth in Nigeria. Using the Endogenous Growth Model, we employ ARDL Bounds Testing Approach and Toda Yamamoto Granger Causality test on quarterly data from 2001 to 2016, to estimate the growth effect of mobile broadband. The findings show that mobile broadband is impacting economic growth positively in the Nigerian economy. It is therefore imperative for policymakers to design policies that will increase access to broadband infrastructure to both the unserved and underserved. It is also imperative to enact policies and regulations that can stimulate the economic impact of mobile broadband technology by strengthening the capacity of the economy to fully absorb the transformational benefits and make productive use of it as a General-Purpose Technology.