An article in this week’s Economist (subscription or free day-pass needed) profiles a soon-to-be-published paper by Harvard’s Robert Jensen that demonstrates mobile phones’ positive relationship to economic growth. This is related to another paper, profiled here back in 2005, by London Business School’s Len Waverman. In both papers, econometric analysis of time-series data is used to demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between mobile phone adoption/penetration and economic growth. The new paper, The Digital Provide: Information (technology), market performance and welfare in the South Indian fisheries sector, uses micro data from fish markets in the Kerala state of India starting in 1997. I won’t re-write what the Economist has to say, but rather quote: As phone coverage spread between 1997 and 2000, fishermen started to buy phones and use them to call coastal markets while still at sea. (The area of coverage reaches 20-25km off the coast.) Instead of selling their fish at beach auctions, the fishermen would call around to find the best price. Dividing the coast into three regions, Mr Jensen found that the proportion of fishermen who ventured beyond their home markets to sell their catches jumped from zero to around 35% as soon as coverage became available… (more)
(Posted by Robert Katz in Emerging Technologies at 10:29 AM)