Mobile communication networks and Internet technologies as drivers of technical efficiency improvement

► Technical efficiency increased from 1980 to 2009 in view of the deployment of mobile communications and Internet. ► The highest increase in technical efficiency per additional mobile phone/Internet subscriber is in Latin America and Asia. ► The largest accrued technical efficiency increase in response to overall Internet diffusion is in high-income countries. ► For low-income countries, the causality is from mobile phone and Internet deployment towards technical efficiency increase.