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Well-being as a Function of Technology and Smart Economy: A Municipality-Level Study

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Handbook of Tourism and Quality-of-Life Research II

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Abstract

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are bringing about drastic changes in people’s daily life. At the same time, the smart economy is growing to allocate resources for better efficacy. However, the effects of ICT and smart economy may vary at the regional level. This chapter aims to discover how the development of ICT and smart economy affect residents’ economic well-being. Taking 311 municipalities of Massachusetts as the research sample, this chapter treats economic wellbeing as the performance measurement, applies Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as the data analysis method, and identifies that Internet access is the strongest factor that enhanced household median income, per capita income, employment and reduce poverty. Sharing rides, as part of the smart economy, significantly increases job opportunities and alleviates poverty.

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Wei, W., Onder, I. (2023). Well-being as a Function of Technology and Smart Economy: A Municipality-Level Study. In: Uysal, M., Sirgy, M.J. (eds) Handbook of Tourism and Quality-of-Life Research II. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31513-8_34

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