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This paper presents a model of the drivers of e-government maturity. We differentiate "maturity" from "readiness" on the basis that the former refers to demonstrated behavior, while the latter provides an idea of a country's potential to achieve e-government, and argue that maturity is a more accurate measure of a country's realized progress. We investigate the prevalence of affluent countries in many e-government rankings using a model where the relationship between GDP and e-government maturity is mediated by ICT infrastructure, human capital, and governance. Using data from authoritative sources, we find that most of the positive influence of GDP on e-government maturity occurs through ICT infrastructure. More mature e-government, however, does not necessarily reflect better governance; in fact our data show a weak but significant negative relationship between e-government maturity and the quality of governance. We suggest plausible explanations for these findings and how the future evolution of egovernment might change the observed relationships.

We assembled a panel data set for the period 2002-2008 and fitted a mixed-effects regression model to study how the maturity of e-Government around the globe was influenced by changing levels of affluence, information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, human capital, and governance. We found that e-Government matured faster with rising affluence (in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita) and improvements in ICT infrastructure. Human capital and the quality of governance had no significant effect on e-Government maturity. The results suggest that a high level of e-Government maturity can be attained purely through investment in ICT infrastructure, without substantial changes to human capital or governance.