In one of our papers in the context of the Prodecon-CM project (available here), Teresa Garín-Muñoz (UNED), Rafael López (UCM), Iñigo Herguera García (ICAE and UCM), Teodosio Pérez-Amaral (ICAE and UCM), and Angel Valarezo (ICAE and UCM) analyze patterns of adoption of a specific set of internet services such as e-commerce, e-banking, and e-government. A common aspect of these services is that they are offered in Spain mostly by national firms and institutions.
We use high-quality official data coming from the INE Survey on equipment and use of ICT by Spanish households (Equipamiento y Uso de Tecnologías de la Informacion y las Telecomunicaciones por los Hogares de España). This is a panel from 2007 to 2016 that includes around 165,000 observations of about 900 variables.
In this work, we use a subsample that corresponds to a cross-section of 6,209 households, to specify theoretical and empirical models of demand, based on the neoclassical theory but adapted to these services. We use logistic regressions to quantify the impact of the different determinants of the individual adoption of each service.
The resulting models provide a very good econometric fit. The most relevant variables to explain the adoption of these technologies are age, education, and the level of computer and internet abilities. Gender and income, however, are only relevant for the adoption of e-commerce and e-banking. Interestingly, the trust level of the internet is only relevant for the adoption of e-commerce.
To conclude, we discuss a set of economic policy proposals that aim to stimulate the demand and reduce the gap that separates Spain with the most advanced European countries. It is worth to point out that our proposals are specific and targeted, avoiding the well-known in Spain, “café para todos”. The idea is to focus on non-working women and the elderly, the groups for which the impact can be most significant and socially more relevant.