Nonlinearities in economic growth: A semiparametric approach applied to information technology data

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capital-economic growth nexus, taking into consideration the previously documented nonlinear relationship between initial income and human capital on the one hand and economic growth on the other. We apply nonparametric techniques for a number of OECD countries for the period 1980-2004. Specification tests provide evidence in favor of the semiparametric specification in which initial income, human capital and ICT capital enter nonlinearly.