Does bridging the Internet Access Divide contribute to enhancing countries' integration into the global trade in services markets?

This paper examines the impact of countries' distance between their Internet usage and the world' average of the Internet usage intensity on their integration into the world market of trade in commercial services. Using an unbalanced panel dataset of 175 countries over the annual period 2000–2013, the empirical analysis indicates that the narrowing of the Internet-related distance would improve countries' integration into the world trade in commercial services market. Furthermore, it helps those countries that are geographically far from the world market to compensate for the adverse effect of this geographical distance on their integration into the world market of trade in commercial services. •This paper examines the impact of countries' Internet distance on their integration into the world market of trade in commercial services.•It relies on a panel dataset of 175 countries over the annual period 2000–2013.•The empirical analysis indicates that narrowing the Internet distance improves countries' integration into the world trade in commercial services market.•Improving Internet Distance reduces the adverse effect of geographical remoteness on countries’ integration into the world market of trade in commercial services.