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Reproducibility package for Who Gains From Cybersecurity Preparedness? Evidence From Sectoral Growth

2026
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Reference ID
RR_WLD_2026_641
Author(s)
Estefania Vergara Cobos, Selcen Cakir, Hagai Mei Zahav
Collections
World Bank Policy Research Working Papers
Metadata
JSON
Created on
May 20, 2026
Last modified
May 20, 2026
  • Overview
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  • Description
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  • Information on metadata

    • Overview

    Abstract

    Does cybersecurity preparedness matter for growth, and if so, where? This paper provides evidence that cybersecurity preparedness amplifies growth in digitally exposed sectors, highlighting its role as a key institutional complement to digitalization. We use a cross country, cross sector interaction design on a panel of 178 countries, five sectors, and two growth intervals, exploiting within country differences across sectors and over time. The estimates imply that a one standard deviation increase in cybersecurity preparedness is associated with about 1 to 2 percentage points higher annualized value added growth in sectors that are more vulnerable to cyber risk relative to less exposed sectors within the same country period. The result is robust across alternative measures of sectoral vulnerability and a range of additional tests. We also find that the effects are slightly larger in high-income countries, suggesting potential differences in the effectiveness of cybersecurity systems. Overall, the results suggest that investments in digital infrastructure and digital adoption may yield larger and more resilient growth returns when accompanied by effective cybersecurity.

    Reproducibility Package

    Scripts
    Get Reproducibility Package
    File name
    RR_WLD_2026_641
    Zip package
    RR_WLD_2026_641.zip
    Title
    Reproducibility package for Who Gains From Cybersecurity Preparedness? Evidence From Sectoral Growth
    Date
    2026-05
    Dependencies
    R dependencies are listed in the file renv.lock.
    Instructions
    See README in reproducibility package.
    Notes
    Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DECDI) Analytics team, World Bank.
    Source code repository
    Repository name URI
    Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank) https://reproducibility.worldbank.org
    Software
    Name
    R
    Version
    version 4.5.2

    Reproducibility

    Technology environment

    Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:
    • OS: Windows 11 Enterprise
    • Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5218 CPU @ 2.30GHz (2.30 GHz) (2 processors)
    • Memory available: 16 GB
    Technology requirements

    Runtime ~ 5 minutes
    Reproduction instructions

    To reproduce the exhibit in this paper a new user should do the following

    1. Open the R Project Who_Gains.Rproj
    2. Restore the environment by running renv::restore() and following the prompts.
    3. Open the WhoGains_clean_code_final.R script
    4. Update the directory on line 49 and run the codes

    Data

    Datasets
    Name
    OECD Inter-Country Input-Output Tables
    Note
    Data accessed in October 2025. Author-prepared file based on OECD inter-country input-output data. Contains sector-level digital input exposure measures used to construct alternative vulnerability proxies. Download Steps: Visit OECD statistics portal, locate input-output tables, download sector-level data. File location: reproducibility/data/sectors_digital_content.dta.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0)
    License URL
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
    Data URL
    https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/inter-country-input-output-tables.html
    Citation
    OECD. 2025. "Inter-Country Input-Output Tables" [dataset]. Author compilation. https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/inter-country-input-output-tables.html. Accessed October 2025.
    Name
    Quantity Index of Energy Inputs
    Note
    Data accessed in October 2025. Contains U.S. sectoral energy input indices used for placebo regressions. Produced by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Industry Accounts, as part of the Integrated Industry-Level Production Account (KLEMS). To access: visit the BEA website URL provided, navigate to Production Account Tables, download the 1997-2023 XLSX file, open the workbook, locate the sheet titled Quantity Index Energy Inputs (2017=100), and copy/paste that worksheet into a new Excel file. File location: reproducibility/data/SectoralEnergyIndexInput_US.xlsx.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Open Access
    License URL
    https://www.bea.gov/open-data
    Data URL
    https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/integrated-industry-level-production-account-klems
    Citation
    U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). 2025. "Integrated Industry-Level Production Account (KLEMS): Quantity Index of Energy Inputs (2017=100)" [dataset]. Industry Accounts. https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/integrated-industry-level-production-account-klems. Accessed October 2025.
    Name
    Global Cybersecurity Index Panel (2017, 2018, 2020, 2024)
    Note
    Data accessed in January 2025. Contains panel data for the Global Cybersecurity Index across countries for 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2024. The dataset was built manually by merging World Bank consolidated data for 2020 and 2024 with ITU report data for 2017 and 2018. To access: download the World Bank GCI consolidated file containing 2020 and 2024 data; download ITU reports for 2017 and 2018; extract Annex 1 data from the 2017 report, multiply values by 100, and merge with the 2020 and 2024 data; repeat for 2018 data. URL (World Bank consolidated): https://data360files.worldbank.org/data360-data/data/ITU_GCI/ITU_GCI_GCI_OVRL_SCRE_WIDEF.csv. URL (ITU 2017 report): https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/str/D-STR-GCI.01-2017-R1-PDF-E.pdf. URL (ITU 2018 report): https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/str/D-STR-GCI.01-2018-PDF-E.pdf. File location: Reproducibility/data/gci_panel.xlsx.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 IGO (CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO)
    License URL
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/igo/
    Data URL
    https://data360files.worldbank.org/data360-data/data/ITU_GCI/ITU_GCI_GCI_OVRL_SCRE_WIDEF.csv
    Citation
    International Telecommunication Union (ITU). 2025. "Global Cybersecurity Index" [dataset]. World Bank Data360 consolidated panel and ITU official publications. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Cybersecurity/Pages/global-cybersecurity-index.aspx. Accessed January 2025.
    Name
    Global Cybersecurity Index 2017 (Cross-Section)
    Note
    Data accessed in January 2025. Contains the 2017 cross-section of the Global Cybersecurity Index. This file is a subset of gci_panel.xlsx, extracted in Excel from the 2017 ITU Global Cybersecurity Index report. To access: download the 2017 GCI report from the ITU website and use the appendix table to build the dataset. File location: Reproducibility/data/2017gci.csv.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO
    License URL
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/igo/
    Data URL
    https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/str/D-STR-GCI.01-2017-R1-PDF-E.pdf
    Citation
    International Telecommunication Union (ITU). 2017. "Global Cybersecurity Index 2017" [dataset]. https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/str/D-STR-GCI.01-2017-R1-PDF-E.pdf. Accessed January 2025.
    Name
    University of Maryland Cyber Events Database
    Note
    Data accessed in February 2025. Contains global cyber incident data used to construct sectoral vulnerability measures. Author-prepared extraction from the University of Maryland CISSM Cyber Events Database. Access can be obtained by visiting the link, subscribing, and downloading. Note: This endpoint originally returned cyber incidents collected from curated websites and blogs. It now returns cyber incidents using the Global Database on Events Language and Tone (GDELT), which may result in a dataset that differs slightly from data downloaded in early 2025. File location: Reproducibility/data/Final_Maryland.xlsx.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Open Access
    License URL
    https://www.lib.umd.edu/about/policies/privacy
    Data URL
    https://cissm.umd.edu/cyber-events-database
    Citation
    University of Maryland, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). 2025. "Cyber Events Database" [dataset]. https://cissm.umd.edu/cyber-events-database. Accessed February 2025.
    Name
    University of Maryland Cyber Events Database (U.S. Subset)
    Note
    Data accessed in January 2025. Contains U.S.-specific cyber incidents used to construct alternative vulnerability measures. This file is a subset of Final_Maryland.xlsx, constructed in Excel by filtering for U.S. incidents only. Access can be obtained by visiting the link, subscribing, downloading, and sorting to create a USA-only dataset. File location: reproducibility/data/us_cyberincidents.csv.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Open Access
    License URL
    https://www.lib.umd.edu/about/policies/privacy
    Data URL
    https://cissm.umd.edu/cyber-events-database
    Citation
    University of Maryland, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). 2025. "Cyber Events Database - U.S. Subset" [dataset]. Author-prepared extraction. https://cissm.umd.edu/cyber-events-database. Accessed January 2025.
    Name
    UNSD Industry Value Added at Constant 2015 Prices (USD)
    Note
    Data accessed in October 2025. Contains country-sector real value added data in constant 2015 USD used to compute sector growth outcomes. Source: United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), National Accounts, Industry Value Added data, accessed via the UNData portal. To access: click on the UNData link, navigate to National Accounts Estimates of Main Aggregates, and select Gross Value Added by Kind of Economic Activity at constant (2015) prices - US dollars. Note: At the time of original download, this endpoint returned constant 2015 USD values. It now returns constant 2020 USD values following UNData revisions; results may therefore differ if data are re-downloaded. File location: Reproducibility/data/UNSD_industry_added_value_USD_constant_2015.xlsx.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Open Access
    License URL
    https://data.un.org/Host.aspx?Content=UNdataUse
    Data URL
    http://data.un.org/Explorer.aspx
    Citation
    United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). 2025. "National Accounts Estimates of Main Aggregates: Gross Value Added by Kind of Economic Activity at Constant (2015) Prices - US Dollars" [dataset]. UNData. http://data.un.org/Explorer.aspx. Accessed October 2025.
    Name
    World Bank Country Income Classifications
    Note
    Data accessed in May 2025. Contains country income classifications used to divide countries into High Income and Non-High Income groups. To access: download the classification file directly from the World Bank link provided. File location: Reproducibility/data/classy.csv.
    Access policy
    Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.
    License
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0)
    License URL
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
    Data URL
    https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/ddpext_download/site-content/CLASS.xlsx
    Citation
    World Bank. 2025. "World Bank Country and Lending Groups" [dataset]. https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/ddpext_download/site-content/CLASS.xlsx. Accessed May 2025.
    Data statement

    All data sources are publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.

    Description

    Output
    Type
    Working Paper
    Title
    Who Gains From Cybersecurity Preparedness? Evidence From Sectoral Growth
    Description
    Policy Research Working Papers (PRWP)
    Authors
    Author Affiliation Email
    Estefania Vergara Cobos World Bank evergaracobos@worldbank.org
    Selcen Cakir University of Turku, Department of Economics selcencakir1@gmail.com
    Hagai Mei Zahav World Bank hmeizahav@worldbank.org
    Date of production

    2026-05-15

    Scope and coverage

    Geographic locations
    Location Code
    World WLD
    Keywords
    Cybersecurity Sectoral Growth Digitalization Productivity Institutions Development
    Topics
    ID Topic Parent topic ID Vocabulary Vocabulary URI
    H56 National Security and War H5 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
    L86 Information and Internet Services • Computer Software L8 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
    O11 Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development O1 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
    O14 Industrialization • Manufacturing and Service Industries • Choice of Technology O1 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
    O33 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences • Diffusion Processes O3 Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)

    Disclaimer

    Disclaimer

    The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.

    Access and rights

    License
    Name URI
    MIT License https://opensource.org/license/mit
    World Bank IGO Rider https://github.com/worldbank/metadata-editor/blob/main/WB-IGO-RIDER.md

    Contacts

    Contacts
    Name Affiliation Email
    Estefania Vergara Cobos World Bank evergaracobos@worldbank.org
    Reproducibility WBG World Bank reproducibility@worldbank.org

    Information on metadata

    Producers
    Name Abbreviation Affiliation Role
    Reproducibility WBG DECDI World Bank - Development Impact Department Verification and preparation of metadata
    Date of Production

    2026-05-15
    Document version

    1
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