Introduction

The dramatic surge in technological innovations in recent years has led researchers to think hard about the linkages between technology and its effects on society. The expansion of technology has increased the capacity to capture, communicate, compute and store information. This has led to a profound restructuring of the economic and social organization of societies (Webster, 2006). In fact, information and communication technologies have become key factors contributing to economic growth in advanced economies and developing countries alike.

There are compelling reasons to expect significant economic development from the adoption of information technologies. The most obvious way in which these technologies can help achieve economic improvements is by reducing asymmetric and imperfect information in markets, which can help in tasks related with search and coordination, and this in turn may lead to increased market efficiency (Chong, 2011). In particular, individuals and firms can use these technologies to search for prices of products, search for jobs, look for potential buyers of products, get ready for weather and natural disasters, as well as remain connected with friends and family (Aker and Mbiti, 2010). Furthermore, it has been argued that such technologies enable a country to leapfrog development stages by being able to decouple information from other factors that were previously embedded together, which allows information to be immediately transmitted and shared by several agents without the actual physical movement of information or individuals (Chong, 2011; Evans and Wurster, 1997). This use of information may produce large content-related externalities. Thus, unlike typical technological innovations in the past information technologies can also increase the knowledge content of products and services and can bring about previously unknown products, jobs and livelihoods (Torero and von Braun, 2006). As a result of these network externalities, information technologies allow for the creation of new industries and open additional labor possibilities many that were unavailable before. Finally, they play a role in the development of public policies by augmenting the range of possibilities and the manner in which policies can be implemented, for instance in terms of being gender-specific or group-specific (Chong, 2011).

Good Research Design Is Important and Feasible

Despite the global, regional and internal digital divide, information and communication technologies have expanded dramatically in the region.