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The economic impact of mobile phone ownership: Results from a randomized controlled trial in Tanzania

Year: 2021

Type: report

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.

Source: Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) (University of Oxford)

Authors: Philip Roessler, Paula Carroll, Flora Myamba, Cornel Jahari, Blandina Kilama, Daniel Nielson

Language: English

Topic: ICT Impact and Policies

Subfield: Economics and Econometrics

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: No poverty, Reduced inequalities, Gender equality

Open Access status: green

Funders: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology

Award: REPOA - to learn the pathway from mobile phone ownership to financial inclusion among women in a developing country by understanding which mobile devices, ...

OpenAlex ID: W3165750427

Cites: 7

Cited by: 4

Related to: 10