There is an apparent link between GDP per capita and ICT investment, however,
this is only one of the crucial aspects of ICT dynamics. Due to the already mentioned
characteristic of being a general purpose technology and the trait of ICT investment to
generate network effects, ICT investments could have positive external effects on the
development of the GDP and the GDP per capita as well; network effects might be
relevant here – e.g. if the ICT capital stock of region i is KICTi and of region j KICTj
the utility of using the regional ICT capital stock in each region is not only a function
of the regional ICT capital stock but of ICT capital stock in adjacent regions as well
(assuming that interregional and international digital networks exist which are not
effectively separated by different languages).
If those spillover effects were to be introduced into a model, Eq. (1) for the GDP
would change to (with the positive parameter φ standing for the size of the invest-
ment spillover effect at the national level):