The Impact of ICT on Sen's Social Welfare Index on Iranian Provinces

Nowadays, Information and Communications Technology is growing rapidly due to the considerable increase in using knowledge-based theories in all countries, especially in developing economies such as Iran. As a non-competitive technology with unlimited use capacity, Information and Communications Technology entry in the general application and social life shows its potential to affect social welfare. This study will evaluate the impact of Information and Communications Technology on Sen's Social Welfare Index in Iranian provinces using data from 2011 to 2016. The paper uses Feasible Generalized Least Squares method to capture variance heteroscedasticities and cross-section correlations. The results indicate that Information and Communications Technology has a significant and positive effect on Iranian social welfare. Moreover, variables such as industrialization, government spending, and urbanization have a substantial and positive impact on social welfare. The inflation rate, on the other hand, has a significant and negative effect.