Cyber-behaviors and development impacts in Latin America

While the current scientific literature is quite scarce for most of the developing world, several leading researchers have made great strides in understanding the role of cyber technologies and related information and communication technologies (ICT) in economic development. A good proportion of this work lays on interventions in the regions of South Asia and Africa. However, cyber-behavior research focused on Latin America has been very limited. Very recently, a group of researchers took a bold step to apply rigorous statistical tools in a systematic way to evaluate how these technologies contributed to the success of several development projects in the region of Latin America. This chapter draws on several of the background papers of the book "Development Connections: Unveiling the Impact of Information Technologies," edited by Alberto Chong, as well as some of the book's chapters. It summarizes a number of specific cyber-interventions in the areas of finance, education and poverty-reduction that took place in Latin America and that may lead to a better understanding of the impact of interventions to know what works, what does not, and why.