Social Learning and Digital Divides: A Case Study of Internet Technology Diffusion
研究了1997至2002年间互联网技术扩散速度，发现社会学习能力强的国家能更快推广信息技术，对关注数字鸿沟和发展政策的研究者有用。
SUMMARY The past few decades have witnessed a widening of the digital divide among countries in the world. Bridging this global digital divide has now become an important development policy of many governments in the developing world. Differing from previous studies that look at the Internet's popularity, this paper focuses on the speed of diffusion of such technologies over the period from 1997 to 2002 in order to highlight its role as a critical driving force in enhancing the social learning of a country. Our empirical results show that a country with better social learning can harmonize its heterogeneous populations, promote the sharing of knowledge as a result of using such technologies, and finally speed up the rate of information technology diffusion.