Do smart cities help to confront unemployment? A multilevel analysis

Abstract

Changes due to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) diffusion have fostered the need to examine the relationship between ICT and unemployment. The objective of this paper is analyzing whether a higher ICT diffusion, proper of smart cities, explains a higher unemployment rate. To this end, we employ a sample of 138 cities from 64 countries. These cities are those for whom the Cities in Motion Index are published. We estimate a multilevel regression model, with two levels: city and country. Results obtained show that technology at both levels of analysis significantly explains cities unemployment rates. D.R.