Mobile Grain Market

Report

An academic paper by Jenny C. Aker of UC Berkeley, ‘Does Digital Divide or Provide?’, examining the impact of cell phones on grain markets in Niger as mobile service was phased in across the country between 2001 and 2006. Using a unique dataset combining grain prices, transport costs, rainfall, production and trader behaviour, the paper finds that cell phone coverage reduced grain price dispersion across markets by at least 6.4% and intra-annual price variation by 10%, with the largest effects for market pairs that were farther apart or connected by poorer roads.