Exploring the Influence of Tribal Governance Capacity: Evidence from Internet Availability in Indian Country

The lack of internet access on American Indian lands is a frequently discussed component of greater socioeconomic inequalities faced by American indigenous communities. In this paper, I identify the impact of the unique barriers to development in Indian Country on internet infrastructure. Using data on internet availability at the census block level from 2014 to 2019, I apply a spatial matching strategy to identify similar native and non-native census blocks to estimate the effect of tribal land designation on cable internet availability. Finding a significant, negative effect for land in Indian Country, I then examine four possible determinants of tribal government capacity (gaming business, federal funding, participation in self-governance compacts, and a reservation economic freedom index) to explore how they may reduce the gap in internet availability. I find that only one of these four measures, compacting, is correlated with improved internet access in Indian Country.