Working paper
The economic impact of mobile phone ownership: Results from a randomized controlled trial in Tanzania
- Abstract:
- We study the causal impact of reducing the mobile gender gap. Leveraging one of the first large-scale experimental studies on women’s mobile phone ownership, we find that in Tanzania over thirteen months smartphones increased households’ annual consumption per capita by 20% compared to control. Consumption gains operated through women’s control and use of the smartphones. However, treatment effects were attenuated by handset turnover. By endline only 34% in the smartphone condition still possessed their handsets. This highlights the economic benefits of closing the mobile gender gap but also the tenuous nature of productive asset ownership for women in low-income households.
- Publication status:
- Published
Actions
Authors
- Publisher:
- Centre for the Study of African Economies
- Article number:
- WPS 2021-05
- Series:
- CSAE Working Paper Series
- Publication date:
- 2021-04-12
- Paper number:
- WPS 2021-05
- Language:
-
English
- Pubs id:
-
1177102
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1177102
- Deposit date:
-
2021-05-19
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Roessler et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 2021, The Author(s).
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