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This paper extends the analysis of the relative impacts of socioeconomic factors on households' decision to subscribe to dialup Internet access (Chaudhuri, Flamm and Horrigan, 2004) to the decision to subscribe to broadband. Our investigation takes into account the fact that demand for broadband may not be expressed directly because of the unavailability of supply. A simple cumulative utility (ordered logit) model is rejected in favor of a partial proportional odds model, and we find that the decision to purchase access at all, and the decision to upgrade to broadband, may be affected differently by the covariates in our model. The own-price elasticity of broadband demand is statistically significant but has a small coefficient value. The cross-price sensitivity of broadband demand with respect to dialup price is also statistically significant, and supports the notion of the two services being substitutes. These results have important policy implications for deepening broadband penetration: first, the small magnitudes of the impacts of own price suggest that untargeted price subsidies may not be a very effective tool. Second, while lower dialup prices (as have been observed in the market recently) increase Internet use, they diminish broadband demand.

This paper investigates information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) projects from around the world. It finds that computer and Internet promotion schemes usually fail despite active support, but mobile penetration in even the poorest countries is deepening organically. It argues that mobiles have emotional appeal because talking is a universal psycho-sociological propensity while the other two are principally utilitarian technologies that have to generate returns on investment. The search for killer apps is likely to be fruitless because technological adoption is conditional upon need and absorptive capacity. The paper raises questions about the continuing support for ICT4D among proponents.

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Although conventional international economic wisdom holds China's hardware and India's software industries to be equipotential, little attempt has been made to compare their information industries in an overarching dynamic framework. Using a schema that links intellectual to financial value creation, it is found that China has systematically moved ahead in creating a self‐supporting industrial and innovation ecosystem. Hardware enjoys higher barriers to entry, which the Chinese companies are increasingly reinforcing with intellectual property investments. In addition to being better integrated with the global economy, they are also buttressed by the huge domestic market. The overdependence of Indian firms on selling low‐value services to a few countries and insulation from domestic demand make them vulnerable to emerging competition and international economic ill‐winds. The two countries provide a study in contrast on the effects of divergent industrial strategies.