Assessing the regional digital divide across the European Union-27 Marı ´a Rosalı ´a Vicente n , Ana Jesu ´ s Lo ´ pez Applied Economics, University of Oviedo, Campus del Cristo s/n, Oviedo-Asturias 33006, Spain article info Available online 25 February 2011 Key words: Digital divide Information and communication technologies (ICT) Technological diffusion Factor analysis European Union Regions abstract Despite the efforts devoted to the analysis of the digital divide over the last years, the regional evidence on this issue is still scarce. Within this context, the goals of this paper are twofold: (1) measuring the digital divide across the regions of the 27 Member States and within each country and (2) explaining the observed regional disparities. The analysis leads to identify Dutch regions as the Top-10 in ICT, while Greece and Bulgaria occupy the Bottom-10. Therefore, results show that the regional digital divide reflects to some extent the income gap. However, regional policy seems to be having some positive implications for technology adoption. In particular, the rural-versus-urban dimension of the digital gap appears to be less important than it is usually claimed to. Likewise, some evidence is found of the role of cultural and institutional factors in ICT adoption, an issue that has not been previously analyzed at the regional level. & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The last two decades have seen the revolutionary spread of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The developments in hardware, software, and electronics have lead to affordable general purpose technologies (Bresnahan & Trajtenberg, 1995) that can be used in most sectors and whose benefits may extend everywhere. Thus, e-mail, web-surfing, online job-search, and social networks have become integrated in daily life. Likewise, activities such as e-learning, e- government, and e-commerce are more and more a major element in the life of many individuals. Hence, ICT have been recognized as a major contributor in social and economic development (OECD, 2004). Furthermore, several authors have stressed the importance of these technologies as a catalyst for growth in the current economic crisis (WEF, 2009). In fact, both American and European recovery plans have considered ICT as part of their strategic actions: for instance, the European Commission has earmarked EUR 1 billion of extra spending for investment in broadband, with special attention to the improvement of high-speed connections in rural regions (European Commission, 2009). ICT are increasingly determining the ability of individuals, firms, and territories to remain competitive and to do things in a more effective and efficient way. Therefore, the inequalities detected in their diffusion may have serious implications for economic growth, human development, and the creation of wealth (ITU, 2006). For this reason, the so-called digital divide has become a major issue on both international and national forums (ITU & UNCTAD, 2007; World Bank, 2009). According to the OECD (2001) ‘‘the term digital divide refers to the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information and communication technologies and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities’’. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect URL: www.elsevierbusinessandmanagement.com/locate/telpol Telecommunications Policy 0308-5961/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.telpol.2010.12.013 n Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 985 10 50 53; fax: +34 985 10 5050. E-mail addresses: mrosalia@uniovi.es (M.R. Vicente), anaj@uniovi.es (A.J. Lo ´ pez). Telecommunications Policy 35 (2011) 220–237