Publication: A Spiky Digital Business Landscape: What Can Developing Countries Do?
Files
48 downloads
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Date
2022-10
ISSN
Published
2022-10
Author(s)
Zhu, Tingting Juni
Grinsted, Philip
Song, Hangyul
Velamuri, Malathi
Abstract
Digital technologies hold the promise
of bridging wealth gaps through innovation-driven growth,
but the “winners-take-most” dynamic of digital business
models calls into question the net growth effect and the
global footprint of this sector. Digital transformation is
driven by a set of digital technologies that have led to a
rapid and steep decline in the costs of data storage,
computation, and transmission. These technologies hold
promise for bridging the wealth gap between nations by
allowing developing countries to catch up with generations
of previous technologies. At the same time, characteristics
inherent to these technologies have the potential to result
in a “winner-takes-most” dynamic, by creating market entry
barriers and leading to high levels of concentration and
potential market dominance. For the first time, this report
provides novel evidence of the characteristics of digital
business and markets in 190 countries. The report defines
digital businesses as digital solution providers that
develop and manufacture digital technology products or
digital services; a subset of these can also use
platform-based and/or data-intensive network effect business
models. The report draws on the World Bank’s newly assembled
firm-level database of 200,000 digital businesses in 190
countries, to provide unique evidence on the current global
digital business landscape.
Citation
“Zhu, Tingting Juni; Grinsted, Philip; Song, Hangyul; Velamuri, Malathi. 2022. A Spiky Digital Business Landscape: What Can Developing Countries Do?. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39437 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”