Abstract Over the past two decades, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has witnessed substantial investments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure. However, the anticipated uniform growth across economic sectors has not materialized, indicating the existence of threshold effects. Hence, this study explores the threshold effects of ICT infrastructure on sectoral growth across twenty-six (26) SSA countries from 1991 to 2022, using dynamic panel threshold regression methods. The findings reveal that in agriculture, ICT indicators such as mobile subscriptions (3.55%), fixed-line subscriptions (2.97%), and composite infrastructure levels (-0.897%) have insignificant impact below their respective thresholds but significantly enhance growth when these thresholds are surpassed, largely due to improved labour participation and foreign direct investment. In the industrial sector, meaningful growth effects emerge only after ICT usage (4.221%) and mobile subscriptions (41.68%) exceed identified thresholds, with labour input further enhancing productivity. For the services sector, mobile penetration (77.26%) supports growth below the threshold, but yields diminish above it— though partially offset by labour efficiency improvements. These results demonstrate the need for targeted ICT investments that reflect sector-specific conditions. The study highlights the importance of reaching critical ICT thresholds to unlock growth, recommending that ICT infrastructure planning in SSA should be aligned with sectoral characteristics and broader economic strategies to maximize development outcomes.
Oshinowo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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