Abstract
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to complement theoretical and qualitative literature with empirical evidence on the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration in 52 African countries.
Design/methodology/approach
– Robust ordinary least squares and two stage least squares empirical strategies are employed.
Findings
– The findings suggest that mobile penetration is pro-poor, as it has a positive income equality effect.
Social implications
– “Mobile phone”-oriented poverty reduction channels are discussed.
Originality/value
– It deviates from mainstream country-specific and microeconomic survey-based approaches in the literature and provides the first macroeconomic assessment of the “mobile phone”-inequality nexus.
Subject
General Social Sciences,Economics and Econometrics
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