Leapfrogging Digital Development: A Quantile Regression Analysis of Quality of Life and Digitalization

Abstract

Objective: This study investigates the relationship between digitalization and quality of life (QOL) for a global sample of 185 countries from 1990 to 2023. The main objective of the study is to tests the validity of the leapfrogging proposition in the context of digitalization and QOL.

Research Gap: The existing literature generally overlooks the examination of the leapfrogging hypothesis while focusing on the relationship between digitalization and QOL.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study employs fixed effects model, system generalized method of moments and panel quantile regression approaches.

The Main Findings: The empirical findings show that digitalization has a positive and significant influence on QOL while controlling for income, age dependency, urbanization, and pollution with alternative estimation techniques. The findings also show that all dimensions of digitalization positively influence QOL in high-income and middle-income countries, suggesting that digitalization complements already established old infrastructure and technologies. However, in the case of low-income countries, mobile phone (modern technology) significantly enhances QOL while fixed telephone (old technology) is either insignificant or negatively associated with QOL, suggesting some relevance of the leapfrogging pattern. It follows that poor countries can leapfrog traditional capital-intensive technology and can focus on the latest technologies for improvement in QOL and wellbeing (SDG-3).

Theoretical / Practical Implications of the Findings: This study concludes that digitalization is imperative to enhance QOL; however, its context may vary across alternative forms of digitalization and stages of development. Hence, policymakers need to be careful while designing policies for human and digital development.