# ICT Adoption and Stock Market Development: Empirical Evidence Using a Panel of African Countries
## 2 Review of Related Literature  
### ICT Adoption and Financial Markets  
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an umbrella term that includes any communication device or application such as radio, television, cellular phones, computer, satellite systems, network hardware and software as well as the various devices and applications associated with them such as videoconferencing and distance learning ([PERSON] 2016). ICT is centred on computer applications, telecommunications equipment and infrastructure to generate, process, store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data or information in the context of businesses or other transactions. There is an abundance of studies that have examined the role and application of ICT in economic activity. [PERSON] et al. (2009) contended that ICT is an effective tool that can be used for improving external communications and delivering quality service to customers. According to [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2003), ICT offers a wide range of possibilities for improving their competitiveness and provides mechanisms for getting access to new market opportunities and specialised information services in organisations. With the development and spread of ICT, and its application to various fields and activities, several studies have been carried out in order to test existing theories and ensure better understanding about its diffusion, adoption, acceptance and usage ([PERSON] et al. 2006; [PERSON] et al. 2003; [PERSON] 2003). These include the technology acceptance model (TAM), diffusion of innovations (DOI), the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), the model of the IT implementation process and the information systems success model theories. [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2010) used panel data analysis techniques to explore the determinants of cross-country disparities in personal computer and Internet penetration in developed and developing countries. The results showed evidence that income, human capital, youth dependency ratio, telephone density, legal quality and banking sector development are associated with technology penetration rates. They found the main factors responsible for low rates of technology penetration in developing countries to include disparities in income, telephone density, legal quality and human capital. [PERSON] et al. (2020) employed a panel of 42 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 2000-2016 to investigate the relationship between ICT adoption, human capital development, economic freedom and financial development. They found that Internet use had a positive impact on different measures of financial development. Further, their results revealed that subsamples of SSA countries differ on their levels of human capital development and economic freedom. [PERSON] et al. (2020) investigated the effects of information and communication ICT diffusion on financial development for 81 countries over the period 1990-2015. They found that, comparing the different effects of ICT on financial development between the high-income group and the middle- and low-income groups, telephone and Internet positively influenced both groups' financial development, whereas mobile cellular caused a negative effect in high-income countries, but a positive effect in middle- and low-income countries. Secondly, they documented that the growth of the Internet and telephones raises the financial development in all regions, while mobile cellular growth positively affects financial development only in Africa. [PERSON] et al. (2021) examined the relationship between financial development, ICT diffusion and economic growth by considering the interlinkage of finance and ICT. They employed a panel of 72 countries from 2000 to 2015 and found that financial development was always unfavourable for economic growth. Secondly, the results of their study documented that ICT diffusion can improve economic growth in high-income countries, but for middle- and low-income countries, only mobile growth could raise economic growth, whereas increasing Internet could not.