Information and communication technology expenditures and household transport fuel market participation and consumption in Ghana

The paper looked at the effect of household outlay on information and communication technology (ICT) on market participation and consumption choices for transportation fuel, as well as the role that household location plays in determining how ICT affects both educated and uneducated households’ market participation and consumption choices. The double-hurdle model was applied to five rounds of secondary Ghana Living Standard Surveys (GLSS). The findings showed that expenditure on ICT has the tendency to reduce household fuel market participation and spending on transport fuel to negative and then back to zero for urban households with education compared to those without education. The research also showed that, in comparison to women, men have a negative desire for fuel market participation but a positive desire for transport fuel consumption. Income and household size are other factors that influence fuel market participation and consumption preferences in households. Finally, household heads without dependants use more transport fuel than dependant families. The purpose of this study is to argue that, as compared to uneducated rural families, cutting back on ICT spending in educated urban households is not only sufficient to reduce spending on transport fuel but also crucial to reducing market participation.