High-Speed Internet Effects: Economic and Mental Health Perspectives
ICT; broadband Internet; difference-in-differences; instrumental variable; accounting profession; mental disorder.
Essay I: The Effect of Fast Internet on Firm-level Demand for Accounting Professionals in Brazil
To what extent can information and communication technologies (ICT) substitute for or complement occupations that perform accounting tasks? This paper estimates the causal impact of fast Internet accessibility on within-firm demand for accounting professionals, using novel administrative datasets from telecommunications infrastructure and employment records, covering 1.8 million geocoded firm-year observations. To address endogeneity concerns, we combine difference-in-differences and instrumental variable strategies leveraging the natural experiment provided by the staggered diffusion of ADSL broadband Internet across Brazilian state capitals and a technical restriction in Internet connectivity. Our robust results indicate that access to fast Internet reduces the share of employees performing repetitive accounting activities by 6.5 percent, while retaining those engaged in high-complexity non-routine tasks. Structural changes appear to be persistent over time. Our conservative back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest that technological change accounts for the termination of at least 14,536 jobs involved in more routine accounting activities during the early broadband era. Our findings warn for potential heterogeneous and disruptive effects of emergent ICTs on accounting professionals.
Essay II: The Impact of 4G Internet on Mental Health: Evidence from Brazil
This project aims to evaluate the effect of 4G Internet technology diffusion on mental health. To establish causality, we will employ an instrumental variable approach, using the context of 4G frequency band coverage commitments set in Brazilian concession auctions and the staggered broadband rollout across localities. This paper will contribute to the growing literature on the relationship between ICT and mental health by estimating the impact of high-speed mobile Internet on various disorders diagnosed by health professionals across different population groups in a developing country. Furthermore, this project seeks to identify potential mechanisms that could explain the observed outcomes.