A reduced Composite Indicator for Digital Divide measurement at the regional level

An application to the Digital Economy and Society Index (Desi)

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21402014
AutoresGiuseppe Bruno (0000-0002-7747-7005, University of Naples Federico II), Antonio Diglio (0000-0002-9775-3927, University of Naples Federico II), Carmela Piccolo (0000-0002-6074-9086, University of Naples Federico II), Eduardo Pipicelli (0000-0002-2778-7320, University of Naples Federico II, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume190
Páginas122461
Data de publicação2023-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTechnological Forecasting and Social Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0040-1625 • E-ISSN: 1873-5509
EditoraElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122461
OpenAlexW4323050464
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas26

The present paper investigates the problem of defining an easy-to-implement tool to evaluate the Digital Divide (DD) among and, above all, within countries to grasp sub-national divides and appropriately inform policy-makers guiding digital transformation processes. With this aim in mind, the study focuses on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), the most recent and currently used CI for DD measurement across European states. A methodology employing correlation and principal component analysis is adopted to assess redundancies in the DESI and obtain a reduced version of the index with a significantly lower number of indicators. Experiments performed using the 2020 data related to the 29 EU countries demonstrate that the reduced DESI produces very similar results to the original one, thus proving the existence of redundancies in its current structure. An extensive analysis of the Italian case shows how the reduced version of the index can be more easily applied at the sub-national level, thus helping to detect DD between regions and offering meaningful policy-making support. In particular, a framework to analyze the obtained results is proposed to support the identification of adequate interventions at the national level or targeted actions to mitigate digital disparities in lagging regions

Composite index · Composite indicator · Data mining · Data science · Digital divide · Digital economy · Digital transformation · Econometrics · Economics · GRASP · Index (typography) · Information and Communications Technology · Lagging · Operations research · Principal component analysis · Statistics · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · E-Government and Public Services · Green IT and Sustainability · ICT Impact and Policies · Mathematics