Internet Access and Native American Economic Development

This paper examines the relationship between internet access and Native American economic development. First, it synthesizes various insights from institutional economics and market-process economics to examine how expanded internet access can improve development on reservations. Reliable, high-speed internet access facilitates a greater degree of specialization and exchange, contributing to economic growth for Native American communities. Internet access directly contributes to development because it provides more ways for private entrepreneurs and tribally owned enterprises to reach consumers, as well as outside firms to exchange with reservation residents. Reliable, high-speed internet access indirectly aids economic development by improving human capital through better access to education and telemedicine. Technological innovations and institutional reforms can reduce the costs of providing internet. Second, this paper describes the real-world institutional and economic barriers that limit internet access on reservations. Third, this paper uses a case study of the Colville Indian Reservation to examine how a real-world technological innovation has improved internet access, thus expanding the extent of the market and facilitating development. The case study is instructive because it examines how recent technological innovations on the Colville Indian Reservation have augmented opportunities in business, health, and education.

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