Replication data for: National Innovative Capacity as Internet Penetration: Worldwide Evidence for Innovation Development through ICTs

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and innovation have profoundly reshaped and promoted global development. Although there are many works that have examined the direct effects of ICTs on national development in the fields of economics, society and politics, the important role played by ICTs in national innovation capacity has been less widely explored from an empirical standpoint. This paper investigates the effect of Internet penetration on national innovation development, based on cross-national panel data from 156 countries between 1995 and 2014. We find that Internet penetration has a significant but decreasing promotional effect on innovation, and this is robust to various models and variable measures. A one-year lagged effect between Internet penetration and innovation is also observed. The results show significant interactive effects between levels of democracy (regime types), Internet penetration and innovation. The paper concludes with an overview of the potential policy implications of these findings.信息与通信技术（ICTs）与创新深刻重塑并推动了全球发展。尽管已有诸多研究从经济学、社会学与政治学领域探讨了ICTs对国家发展的直接影响，但从实证视角探究ICTs在国家创新能力中所发挥的重要作用的相关成果仍相对匮乏。本研究基于1995年至2014年间156个国家的跨国面板数据，探究了互联网普及率（Internet penetration）对国家创新发展的影响。研究发现，互联网普及率对创新具有显著但边际递减的促进作用，且该结论在多种模型设定与变量度量方式下均保持稳健。同时，研究还观测到互联网普及率与创新之间存在一年期的滞后效应。研究结果表明，民主水平（政权类型）、互联网普及率与创新三者之间存在显著的交互效应。本研究最后概述了上述研究结论所蕴含的潜在政策启示。