(Picture source: www.economist.com)
The Economist has a story about how mobile phones promote economic growth based on Robert Jensen’s paper entitled The Digital Provide: Information (technology), market performance and welfare in the South Indian fisheries sector.
…starting in 1997 mobile phones were introduced in Kerala. Since coverage spread gradually, this provided an ideal way to gauge the effect of mobile phones on the fishermen’s behaviour, the price of fish…
One particularly popular tale is that of the fisherman who is able to call several nearby markets from his boat to establish where his catch will fetch the highest price. Mr Jensen’s paper adds some numbers to the familiar stories and shows precisely how mobile phones support economic growth…
Mr Jensen’s work is valuable because studies of the economic effect of mobile phones tend to be macroeconomic. A well known example is the finding in 2005 by Leonard Waverman, of the London Business School, that an extra 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country leads to an additional 0.59 percentage points of growth in GDP per person.