Serhiy Lyeonov

Silesian University of Technology, Zabrze, Poland;

Lithuania Business College, Klaipeda, Lithuania

E-mail: serhiy.lyeonov@polsl.pl

ORCID 0000-0001-5639-3008

E-government development and business transactional expenditure: Cross-country evidence on interest rate spread distortions, logistics performance, and services trade restrictiveness

Larysa Hrytsenko

Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark;

Sumy State University, Sumy, Ukraine

ORCID 0000-0003-3903-6716

Andrej Macko

Faculty of Economics and Business, Pan-European University in Bratislava, Slovakia

E-mail: andrej.macko9@icloud.com 

ORCID 0009-0005-4858-4820

Judit Oláh

Széchenyi István University

Hungary

E-mail: juditdrolah@gmail.com

ORCID 0000-0003-2247-1711

Abstract. Digital transformation of the public sector is increasingly relevant because it can reshape the costs firms face in finance, logistics, and cross-border service provision. This study investigates how e-government development and its human-capital, online-service, and telecommunication components influence interest rate spread distortions, logistics performance, and services trade restrictiveness across countries, and whether these effects are linear or non-linear. The analysis uses three unbalanced country panels covering 1,299 observations for 130 countries, 906 observations for 163 countries, and 306 observations for 51 countries, estimated with two-way fixed-effects models and Driscoll–Kraay standard errors, with robustness checks and quadratic specifications implemented in R. The results show that a 0.1-point increase in EGDI is associated with an approximately 0.45-point reduction in the absolute interest rate spread, while the robustness coefficient remains negative at -0.677. Human capital and telecommunication infrastructure are especially important in this dimension, with baseline coefficients of -3.921 and -1.910, respectively. In the logistics specification, aggregate EGDI is insignificant, but HCI is positive and significant (β = 0.372), and a 0.1-point increase in HCI raises the Logistics Performance Index by about 0.037 points. In the services-trade specification, EGDI reduces STRI by -0.095. At the same time, HCI shows a U-shaped effect with a turning point at 0.975, indicating that digital human capital lowers restrictiveness up to very high levels before the relationship turns upward.

Received: March, 2025

1st Revision: March, 2026

Accepted: April, 2026

DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2026/19-1/10

JEL Classification: D23, H11, H83, L91, F13

Keywords: e-government development, transaction costs, interest rate spread, logistics performance, services trade restrictiveness, digital governance