Charles Kenny

Overselling Broadband

This essay for CGD critiques the UN Broadband Commision's reports which suggest broadband is vital to meet the Millennium Development Goals.  It isn't.

Technology and USAID: Three Cheers and a Thousand Cautions

Technology and USAID is a CGD essay discussing Raj Shah's efforts to promote technology in development.  It is a great idea, but it carries risks well illustrated by his example of a tablet computer changing farming practices and education in rural West Africa.

Fiber Cons

Co-authored with my brother Robert, the latest FP column is the short version of our paper arguing that governments shouldn't subsidize fiber rollout.  I'd wanted the title to be 'insoluble fiber,' but there you go.

Superfast: Is It Really Worth a Subsidy?

Suerpfast: Is It Worth A Subsidy? is a working paper written with my brother, Robert Kenny, at Communications Chambers.  Governments around the world are investing multiple billions to support the roll-out of fiber. These subsidies are based on the premise that fiber to the home brings substantial externalities.  However, the evidence that basic broadband has contributed significantly to economic growth is decidedly mixed, and points to low returns for (expensive) superfast upgrades.  This is especially the case given that many of the applications used to emphasize the supposed benefits of fiber to the home can be delivered by basic broadband or by superfast to business and government rather than to homes.  In addition, other high speed broadband infrastructures are often simply ignored when making the case for fiber, and fiber rollout is credited with bringing benefits that would in fact require major systems and social change in other parts of the economy.  Given the benefits of fiber have been considerably overstated, governments should think very hard indeed before supporting fiber rollout to the home.  The paper casued a bit of excitement in Australia, and attracted some critics.  Here is our response.  The paper was published in info  (vol 13, No. 11).  We published a short version in The Journal of the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (gated, here).

The Next Decade of ICT Development

The Next Decade of ICT Development: Access, Applications, and the Forces of Convergence was co-authored with Mohsen Khalil.  It was published in Information Technology for International Development 4,3. Developing countries are already driving global innovation in technologies and business models related to information and communications. Ongoing technological change may give new life to business and regulatory models adopted and then abandoned in the era of the dot-com boom in developed countries, and developing countries may take the lead in such changes. As networks and applications spread, catalyzing the impact of ICTs for development will become a challenge of the broader environment for their exploitation

ICT: Promises, Opportunities and Dangers for the Rural Future

ICT: Promises, Opportunities and Dangers for the Rural Future is for the Rural Futures conference in Plymouth, UK in March.  The paper briefly reviews the evidence regarding the rapid rollout of rural ICT access worldwide, and the powerful tools that access can unleash.  At the same time, it suggests the limits to the ICT revolution in rural areas especially in poor countries, and points to the limited evidence that ICT will reverse forces of agglomeration favouring the concentration of people and productivity in urban areas.  It concludes by suggesting the marginal role for ICT-based policymaking in regional development strategies.

Baywatch: Bigger than Aid?

Baywatch: Bigger than Aid? is an unpublished short paper.  It ponders the economic impact of the television program Baywatch --an everyday tale of lifesaving folk-- on people in the developing world.  It concludes that, without considerably greater academic attention to the subject, we may never know the coefficient of Baywatch episodes on per capita income growth.

Ending Global Poverty Through Tax Breaks to Bill Gates

Ending Global Poverty Through Tax Breaks to Bill Gates is an unpublished short paper. Many developing countries have enacted or are considering subsidies and tax breaks for the ICT industry.  This paper argues that the economic justification for such favoritism is very weak.  It is based in part on material from Overselling the Web.  A version was published in The Globalist.

ICTs Enterprise and Development

ICTs Enterprise and Development  is a draft chapter for ICT4D edited by Tim Unwin. It was written with Mike Best. There is no doubting that ICTs have had a significant development impact. Micro- and macroeconomic approaches alike suggest that the rollout of ICTs has improved livelihoods and increased the productivity of businesses. At the same time, the ICT industry itself has been a significant source of profitable investment and employment. This is not to suggest that ICTs are a silver bullet for underdevelopment, however. Successful utilization of communications technologies –and perhaps in particular the Internet—takes a broader economic environment that is conducive to their exploitation. Similarly, ICT industries and ICT-enabled businesses need an investment climate that includes an educated workforce with appropriate technical skills, access to entrepreneurial finance and business talent, reliable infrastructure, a robust but reasonable regulatory environment, and so on. Information and Communications Technologies have a role to play in the development process, but they are one player in a large ensemble cast.

I wrote an earlier collaborative paper on the impact of ICTs on development with Richard Heeks. The Economics of ICTs and Global Inequality: Convergence or Divergence for Developing Countries? was published as an IDPM Working Paper.  If debate on ICTs and development has drawn from any discipline, it has tended to be sociology. This paper attempts to broaden the debate by drawing on economic evidence to ask: will ICTs support economic convergence or divergence between developing and industrialised countries?  In an overall sense, technology is fundamental to development. However, ICTs – while having an uncertain impact on growth – are currently a force for global economic divergence rather than convergence. They diffuse more slowly in developing countries than industrialised countries, and they bring fewer benefits and greater costs to developing countries than industrialised countries.  This does not present an argument against adoption of ICTs by developing countries. Rather, it presents an argument for focus on particular applications and investment priorities.

Internet Governance on a Dollar a Day

Internet Governance on a Dollar a Day  is forthcoming in Information Polity.  Globally, around one billion people live on a dollar a day. About 44 percent –nearly half-- of the World’s population lives on less than two dollars a day. This paper examines the importance of "Internet governance" to such people. Arguments over generic top-level domain names might seem of somewhat esoteric interest to the subsistence farmer. Indeed, if Internet governance is defined in the narrow sense of the management of TLDs (Top Level Domains) and root zone files, it is surely of little importance to poor people. However, given the nature both of technology and of poor people’s demands for information and communication, a broader definition of Internet governance does spill over into issues of importance to all, including the world’s poorest. Furthermore, thinking in terms of "information governance" may make more sense in an increasingly converged sector, and issues of information governance are of undoubted importance to poor people. In turn, this suggests priorities for governments attempting to improve the lives of the poor through increasing information flows.