Weaknesses of the E-Government Development Index - IT Enabled Services - page 109

or for worse - public policy debate around the world is influenced by the EGDI
more than any other measure.
It is prudent, therefore, to examine the EGDI in more detail to reveal possible
consequences of its use. Given that it is likely to continue to remain the dominant
measure of e-government success for some time, this will allow for public policy
debate to ensure a wider view of the state of affairs of e-government development.
This chapter examines economic and sociocultural factors related to the EGDI,
details of which are explored in the following sections.

7.2 Economic Factors

Perhaps not surprisingly, the EGDI is strongly correlated to per capita GDP. Indeed,
the UN E-Government Survey 2012 notes numerous associations between per
capita GDP and the state of e-government in various countries. Nevertheless, the
rankings presented in the UN report do not take income into account and the results
are similar to a ranking of per capita GDP.
Therefore, in this chapter we present an alternative ranking based on the UN data
and weighted to take into account per capita GDP, revealing somewhat unexpected
results. We conclude with discussion of some of the possible consequences of an
index which does not take these into account.

7.2.1 Incorporating GDP into EGDI

Using 2011 GDP data from the International Monetary Fund, a strong correlation
was observed between each of the indices and per capita GDP. In the case of the
Online Service Index (OSI):

R 2 OSI ¼ 0 1352 ln GDP ð Þ 0 7557 ¼ 0 5219 (7.1)

: : ; :

In the case of the Telecommunications Index (TI):

R 2

TI ¼ 0 1698 ln ð GDP Þ 1 1917 ¼ 0 7424 (7.2)

: : ; :

And in the case of the Human Capital Index (HCI):

R 2 HCI ¼ 0 1257 ln ð GDP Þ 0 4042 ¼ 0 6023 (7.3)

: : ; :

Finally, the overall EGDI is inevitably correlated with GDP, derived as it is from
the three components above:

R 2

EGDI ¼ 0 1436 ln ð GDP Þ 0 7839 ¼ 0 7712 (7.4)

: : ; :