Telecommunication development and regional economic growth : evidence from ITU ICT Development Index (IDI) top five countries for African region

This study focused on the effect of telecommunication development on economic growth in leading ICT Developed countries for African region. Following previous studies, we used teledensity (or the penetration rate) defined as the number of fixed-line and mobile phone subscribers per 100 persons as a proxy to measure the development of the telecommunications sector in our study while, economic growth is proxied by Gross domestic product at current prices (US dollars). After ensuring data stationarity, the Granger causality test shows no causal relationship between mobile and fixed teledensity and economic growth. However, our OLS test confirms that telecommunication development in Africa has a positive and significant influence on economic growth.