The Impact of Fixed and Mobile Telephones on Economic Growth in Algeria during the Period from 1963 to 2015

Abstract

Communication is considered as an inevitable consequence of any development policy, whether economic or social, and among the various types of communication, telecommunication representing one of the irreplaceable infrastructure for any society. The demand on these services is increasing, from a simple telephone line to the establishment an information transmission network that dominates the different substrates of conversion, cable, fiber optic, satellite, etc. The telecommunications sector at Algeria has been monopolized by the state and has suffered greatly in response to the growing demand for telephone lines. But things have changed thanks to the new law of the sector, which opened the doors to private investors after thirty eight years; the State has licensed the private sector, and led to increased supply in this area. This article aims to study the causal relationship between GDP and telecommunications across the Algerian fixed and mobile telephones from 1963 to 2015. The empirical analysis moves by steps to test chronological series characteristics by using the Phillips-perron (PP) tests, the Johansen cointegration test, and the Vector Error Correction Model short-term (VECM), ending with the Granger causality test. The results showed that the coefficient is statistically significant for the VECM test, and the Granger causality test that has showed a unidirectional causal relationship between variables.