Telecommunications services and economic growth: Evidence from India

This paper estimates the growth contributions of telecom services by public and private sectors and distinguishes it from the information technology services. Socio-economic determinants of demand for telecom services are estimated for fixed and mobile phones in the framework of a Logit model and using data from a small-household sample survey in India. Estimation results show a significant negative impact of price and a positive impact of income variables; distinguish the importance of social caste, education level, nature of occupation, age of household head and family size between fixed and mobiles phones and offer evidence for substitutability of mobile phones for fixed phones. These results add to the empirical knowledge of socio-economic determinants of telecom demand and have implications for selective design of policies towards promotion of higher demand and attainment of higher economic growth by fixed and mobile services in India and other developing countries.