Digital economy drivers: a comparative analysis of European countries development

The article is devoted to the study of the digital economy components, their interconnection and the impact on economic activity. At the beginning, the state of the digital economy is briefly characterized as an object of scientific research in the world community. The author develops previously formulated thesis about stages of the digital economy formation, identifying as a result the infrastructural components of digital economy which include IT equipment, the Internet and digital technologies. Following hypothesis is formulated: development of each of these components contributes to the development of others. The second and third components are analyzed in more detail, highlighting the development of each of them within a specialized industry: telecommunications and IT, respectively. A brief retrospective analysis of the relationship between the development of these industries is provided with the main stages description. In the final part, an empirical analysis of the technological and telecommunications development of European countries was carried out based on datasets of Eurostat and the International Telecommunication Union. Based on the results, the following outcomes were formulated: 1) digital technologies diffusion rate is higher in Western and Northern European countries - the same places where the telecommunications indicators are higher; 2) the nature of the specific digital technologies diffusion dynamics indicates that the northwestern countries are mainly focused on their use as a tool for reducing costs, while the southeastern countries are focused more on revenue increasing.