Socio-Digital Inclusion for Inclusive Growth: Evidences from World Level Data

Abstract

Drawing on the theory of “inclusive growth (IG)”, it is indispensable to disregard it’s nexus from social inclusion (SI) and digital inclusion (DI). Majority of digital inclusion projects have focused on SI, particularly for catalyzing economies with a productive employment opportunities for individuals. In above regards, this study probes direct and indirect linkages between inclusive growth (IG), digital inclusion (DI) and social inclusion (SI) at different levels of income groups in world i.e. High Income Countries (HYCs), Middle Income Countries (MYCs) and Low Income Countries (LYCs). IG & SI indexes illustrates that SI and IG have strong associations with changing income levels of country groups. Result from Cross Panel Lagged Model (CPLM) from Structural Eq. Modeling (SEM) depicts continuous time comparisons among SI, DI & IG. Owing to this conjecture, inclusive growth is a long term process and it may not be completely achieved under short period of time. The study concluded that in continuous time period, DI and SI significantly affect inclusive growth in all the three income sets for few time periods. It was further found that for most of the cases, IG, DI and SI have not only positive, but also strong linkages with its own lagged values over continuous time. Few empirical evidences were found which directed that DI affects SI in continuous time and vice-aversa. The results verily confirm that DI has played a positive and significant role in the process of SI. Lastly, it is important to highlight the need of comprehensive policy framework, which target to improve SI and DI, ultimately inclusive growth in MYCs & LYCs. Such policy framework is lacking, particularly in LYCs.