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AbstractAs US broadband access becomes increasingly common and more individuals routinely go online, the implications for the local retail sector are unclear. Lower online prices and the lack of an effective sales tax suggests that growing e‐commerce purchases would negatively impact local retail sales, which would in turn decrease revenue for public services. This can be particularly problematic in rural areas, with fewer retail stores and an increased dependency on sales tax. However, e‐commerce comprises only a surprisingly small portion of the total retail market (3.6% in 2008), and surveys have suggested that a significant portion of consumers use the Internet to research a product before ultimately buying offline. This paper uses county‐level data from Oklahoma in 2008 to examine the effects of broadband adoption rates on local sales tax collections. The results show that, while a naïve cross‐section model suggests that higher levels of broadband access increase the amount of local sales tax collected, a more appropriate difference‐in‐differences approach finds no statistical impact on collections. This implies that although many community developers in rural areas worry about the implications of e‐commerce, current levels of Internet activity neither detract from nor contribute to the amount of tax collected from local retail sales. Resumen. A medida que el acceso a servicios de banda ancha en los EE.UU. es cada vez más común y cada vez más individuos se conectan a Internet de modo cotidiano, no está claro lo que esto implica para el sector del comercio local. Los precios en línea cada vez más bajos y la falta de un impuesto de ventas efectivo sugieren que el aumento de las compras por comercio electrónico tendría un impacto negativo en las ventas del comercio local al por menor, que a su vez generaría menos ingresos para los servicios públicos. Esto puede ser particularmente problemático en áreas rurales, al tener menos comercios al por menor y una mayor dependencia de los impuestos de ventas. Sin embargo, el comercio electrónico solo constituye una porción sorprendentemente pequeña del total del sector al por menor (3,6% en 2008), y varios muestreos sugieren que una parte significativa de consumidores usa Internet para informarse sobre el producto antes de hacer finalmente su compra en un establecimiento comercial. Este artículo utiliza datos a escala de condado del estado de Oklahoma en 2008 para examinar los efectos de la tasa de adopción de banda ancha sobre la recaudación de impuestos de ventas locales. Los resultados muestran que, aunque un modelo transversal simplista sugiere que cuanto mayor es el acceso a servicios de banda ancha mayor es la recaudación por impuestos de ventas locales, bajo un enfoque más adecuado de diferencias en diferencias no se encontró un impacto negativo en la recaudación. Esto implica que aunque muchos de quienes se dedican al desarrollo de comunidades de áreas rurales están preocupados por las implicaciones del comercio electrónico, los niveles actuales de actividad en Internet no suman, pero tampoco restan, a la cifra de impuestos recaudados localmente por ventas al por menor.

Rural communities suffer from supply- and demand-side disadvantages when dealing with Internet access. Telecommunications companies are less likely to provide such communities with needed infrastructure because of their lower population densities; these communities also tend to have lower levels of factors known to influence the access decision, such as education and income.This study looks at the broadband Internet setting in Oklahoma over a 3-year period, examining the diffusion of infrastructure and access rates. A nonlinear decomposition technique allows for measurement of how characteristics such as the availability of infrastructure contribute to observed metropolitan—micropolitan or metropolitan—noncore digital divides.The results suggest that although differences in infrastructure are consistently only minor contributors to the divide, their importance has increased as knowledge about the Internet has diffused.

Abstract A consistent gap exists between home Internet use in metropolitan areas and in non‐metropolitan areas in the U.S. This digital divide may stem from technology differences in home Internet connectivity. Alternatively, differences in education, income, and other household attributes may explain differences in metropolitan and non‐metropolitan area home Internet access. Effective programs to reduce the metropolitan–non‐metropolitan digital divide must be based on an understanding of the relative roles that technology and household characteristics play in determining differential Internet usage. The household Internet adoption decision is modeled using a logit estimation approach with data from the 2001 U.S. Current Population Survey Internet and Computer Use Supplement. A decomposition of separate metropolitan and non‐metropolitan area estimates shows that differences in household attributes, particularly education and income, account for 63 percent of the current metropolitan–non‐metropolitan digital divide. The result raises significant doubts that policies which focus solely on infrastructure and technology access will mitigate the current metropolitan–non‐metropolitan digital divide.