The role of cities in bridging the digital divide: A multilevel analysis of Latin American countries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46661/rev.metodoscuant.econ.empresa.11295Keywords:
Digital gap, smart cities, Latin America, multilevel modelAbstract
This paper aims to analyze the explanatory factors of the digital development of cities in Latin America. It is based on the hypothesis that in recent years there have been significant changes in the technological development of cities over time, and that such changes are explained by variations in the characteristics of the cities, as well as the countries to which they belong. We estimate a multilevel model with three levels: time, city and country. Random effects are analyzed as an alternative to evaluate the evolution of such digital development over time. For this purpose, data is used in the period 2020-2023 from 27 cities belonging to 16 countries in the Latin American region. The results indicate that there is significant variation in digital development over time between cities and between countries. On the other hand, this evolution in digital development is mainly explained by the digital divide at the country level and by the urban policies implemented by cities.
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