The Last Mile of Broadband: Estimating the Economic Impacts of Connect America Fund Initiative

I use a county-level panel dataset from 2013 to 2019 to assess the impacts of a federal program that provided massive subsidies to facilitate the expansion of broadband infrastructure: The Connect America Fund Phase II Program. This program incentivized telecommunications carriers to provided broadband access to high-cost areas in the United States (typically rural and other underserved communities). I study the impact of this "last mile" of broadband and assessing broadband access on local economic employment outcomes. I find that program funding in a geographic area has a positive effect on weekly wages, and potentially has a positive impact on population development.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Munyikwa, Zanele

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Horton, John J.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright MIT

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/150052

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/150052