What the overall Digital Economy and Society Index reveals: A statistical analysis of the DESI EU28 dimensions.

We build on the argument that measurement of digitalization is essential for effective public policy strategies in order to to govern digital transition. Developing this argument, we investigate the five principal dimensions of the European Commission's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) using a series of multivariate statistics. The analysis can be divided into three groups. First, we analyse the linear relationships between dimensions by correlation analysis, partial correlation analysis, and principal component analysis. In the partial correlation analysis, causal relationships between the dimensions show high correlations. Second, we assign countries into groups with cluster analysis and multi-dimensional scaling. The groups obtained by the two methods are very similar. Finally, we rank the European Union (EU) countries using statistical methods and compare with the results obtained with the overall DESI index. The correlation between the two rankings shows a strong linear relationship. Based on these results we draw conclusions on how to effectively use the DESI data for public policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]