Waverman Mobile Economics

Report

A presentation by Leonard Waverman, Meloria Meschi and Melvyn Fuss of the London Business School, LECG and the University of Toronto on mobile telecommunications and economic growth, built around the question of how important a good communications system is for growth in developing countries. Citing Celtel founder Mo Ibrahim’s observation that sub-Saharan Africa’s mobile subscriber base grew 67% in a single year — far outpacing Western Europe’s 10% — against more new mobile customers added in Africa than in North America, the presentation argues that telecommunications deserves far more prominence as social overhead capital in the development debate than it received in frameworks like the Millennium Development Report.