IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v37y2009i12p1887-1896.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Mobile Phone Coverage Expansion on Market Participation: Panel Data Evidence from Uganda

Author

Listed:
  • Muto, Megumi
  • Yamano, Takashi

Abstract

Summary An increased information flow due to mobile phone network expansions is expected to reduce marketing costs of agricultural commodities. We investigate this using panel data of 856 Ugandan households in 94 communities, where the number of communities covered by mobile phone networks increased from 41 to 87 between surveys in 2003 and 2005, respectively. After the expansion of coverage, we find increased sales of banana in remote communities but not of maize. The mobile phone coverage expansion seems to induce the market participation of farmers in remote areas who produce perishable crops.

Suggested Citation

  • Muto, Megumi & Yamano, Takashi, 2009. "The Impact of Mobile Phone Coverage Expansion on Market Participation: Panel Data Evidence from Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 1887-1896, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:37:y:2009:i:12:p:1887-1896
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-750X(09)00096-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Jensen, 2007. "The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 879-924.
    2. Jenny Aker, 2008. "Does Digital Divide or Provide? The Impact of Cell Phones on Grain Markets in Niger," Working Papers 154, Center for Global Development.
    3. Ritva Reinikka & Paul Collier, 2001. "Uganda's Recovery : The Role of Farms, Firms, and Government," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13850.
    4. Smale, Melinda & Tushemereirwe, Wilbeforce K., 2007. "An economic assessment of banana genetic improvement and innovation in the Lake Victoria Region of Uganda and Tanzania:," Research reports 155, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Pender, John & Nkonya, Ephraim & Jagger, Pamela & Sserunkuuma, Dick & Ssali, Henry, 2004. "Strategies to increase agricultural productivity and reduce land degradation: evidence from Uganda," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(2-3), pages 181-195, December.
    6. Bayes, Abdul, 2001. "Infrastructure and rural development: insights from a Grameen Bank village phone initiative in Bangladesh," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 25(2-3), pages 261-272, September.
    7. Jonathan Donner, 2004. "Microentrepreneurs and Mobiles: An Exploration of the Uses of Mobile Phones by Small Business Owners in Rwanda," Information Technologies and International Development, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-21.
    8. Overa, Ragnhild, 2006. "Networks, distance, and trust: Telecommunications Development and changing trading practices in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1301-1315, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard A. Duncombe, 2014. "Understanding the Impact of Mobile Phones on Livelihoods in Developing Countries," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 32(5), pages 567-588, September.
    2. Dorward, Leejiah J., 2012. "Where are the best opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food system (including the food chain)? A comment," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 463-466.
    3. Jensen, Robert T., 2009. "Information, Efficiency And Welfare In Agricultural Markets," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 53206, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. repec:ags:mididp:152396 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sarin, Ankur & Jain, Rekha, 2009. "Effect of Mobiles on Socio-economic Life of Urban Poor," IIMA Working Papers WP2009-02-05, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    6. Sekabira, Haruna & Qaim, Matin, 2017. "Can mobile phones improve gender equality and nutrition? Panel data evidence from farm households in Uganda," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 95-103.
    7. Wouter Zant, 2017. "Impact of Mobile Phones on Staple Food Markets in Mozambique: Improved Arbitrage or Increased Rent Extraction?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-021/V, Tinbergen Institute, revised 26 Jan 2018.
    8. Anais Maillet, 2015. "Food price volatility and farmers' production decisions under imperfect information," FOODSECURE Technical papers 8, LEI Wageningen UR.
    9. Kyeong Ho Lee & Marc F. Bellemare, 2013. "Look Who's Talking: The Impacts of the Intrahousehold Allocation of Mobile Phones on Agricultural Prices," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 624-640, May.
    10. Shively, Gerald E. & Hao, Jing, 2012. "A Review Of Agriculture, Food Security And Human Nutrition Issues In Uganda," Working papers 135134, Purdue University, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    11. Mittal, Surabhi, 2012. "Modern ICT for Agricultural Development and Risk Management in Smallholder Agriculture in India," Socioeconomics Program Working Papers 147107, CIMMYT: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
    12. Jonathan Donner & Marcela X. Escobari, 2010. "A review of evidence on mobile use by micro and small enterprises in developing countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(5), pages 641-658.
    13. Tschirley, David L. & Ayieko, Miltone W. & Hichaambwa, Munguzwe & Goeb, Joey & Loescher, Wayne, 2010. "Modernizing Africa’s Fresh Produce Supply Chains without Rapid Supermarket Takeover: Towards a Definition of Research and Investment Priorities," Food Security International Development Working Papers 93030, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    14. Mahamadou Roufahi Tankari, 2018. "Mobile Phone and Households¡¯ Poverty: Evidence from Niger," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 43(2), pages 67-84, June.
    15. Eduardo Nakasone & Maximo Torero, 2016. "A text message away: ICTs as a tool to improve food security," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(S1), pages 49-59, November.
    16. Nancy Chau & Hideaki Goto & Ravi Kanbur, 2016. "Middlemen, fair traders, and poverty," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(1), pages 81-108, March.
    17. Hailemariam Ayalew & Dagim G. Belay, 2020. "The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange and Spatial Price Dispersion: Disentangling Warehouse and Price Information effects," IFRO Working Paper 2020/01, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    18. Ward, Michael R. & Zheng, Shilin, 2016. "Mobile telecommunications service and economic growth: Evidence from China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 89-101.
    19. Melia, Elvis, 2019. "The impact of information and communication technologies on jobs in Africa: a literature review," IDOS Discussion Papers 3/2019, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    20. Abdul-Salam, Yakubu & Phimister, Euan, 2014. "Modelling the Impact of Market Imperfections on Farm Household Investment in Stand-Alone Solar PV," 88th Annual Conference, April 9-11, 2014, AgroParisTech, Paris, France 169742, Agricultural Economics Society.
    21. Beuermann, Diether & McKelvey, Christopher & Sotelo, Carlos, 2012. "The Effects of Mobile Phone Infrastructure: Evidence from Rural Peru," Working Papers 2012-012, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:37:y:2009:i:12:p:1887-1896. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.