Mobile Phone and Households¡¯ Poverty: Evidence from Niger

This study attempts to highlight, in the development context, the impact of mobile telephony on households¡¯ poverty in terms of welfare indicator improvement derived from the total household expenditure. By using the data from the National Survey of Household Living Conditions and Agriculture of 2011 (ECVMA-2011) in Niger, econometric regressions were performed by assuming on the one hand the exogeneity of the variable of interest and taking into account its endogeneity following the approach of the instrumental variable, on the other hand. In both cases, the impact of mobile telephony on household welfare is positive and significant but with different magnitude. Furthermore, by considering the welfare indicator derived from household food expenditure, we find that the mobile phone ownership has significant impact in reducing food poverty confirming, thus, the robustness of the findings. Therefore, the use of mobile phony can constitute a powerful mean of poverty reduction in developing countries.