ESSAYS ON THE SOCIOECONOMIC DETERMINANTS AND IMPACT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

During the last quarter century, the diffusion of information and communications technology (ICT) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been shaped by noteworthy socioeconomic determinants and arguably resulted in significant socioeconomic impact. The first essay in this dissertation is an enquiry into the statistically significant socioeconomic determinants of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in SSA languages. Logit and probit regressions reveal that the presence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) startups, effective governance, trade volume and mean years of schooling are the positive statistically significant socioeconomic determinants of NLP in SSA. The second essay is an enquiry into the socioeconomic impacts of mobile phone technology diffusion in SSA, as measured by poverty headcounts and income inequality at the country level. Fixed effects regressions reveal that mobile phone technology diffusion has a statistically significant negative relationship with poverty headcount ratios and income inequality at the country level in SSA. The third essay links ICT diffusion in SSA and socioeconomic impacts with a theory of increased ease of capability realization by SSA residents resulting from the use they make of ICT applications. Using mixed methods, this essay also finds that ICT diffusion in SSA has a statistically significant positive relationship with increased financial account ownership by the poorest 40 percent in SSA, as well as for the women and youth in the region. The third essay concludes with a discussion of the beneficial effects of ICT-augmentation of especially economically disadvantaged people relative to the limitations they face in the capability realization process. The dissertation concludes with policy recommendations based on insights from the essays.