Mobile phones, income diversification, and poverty reduction in rural Bangladesh

IF 2 4区经济学 Q2 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Review of Development Economics Pub Date : 2024-05-02 DOI:10.1111/rode.13110

Masanori Matsuura‐Kannari, Abu Hayat Md. Saiful Islam, Salauddin Tauseef

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Abstract

The widespread adoption of mobile phones (MPs) presents the possibility of creating employment and self‐employment opportunities. Although several studies have documented the impact of MPs on income, the link between MP ownership and poverty reduction channeled by income diversification has not been fully explored. This paper aims to examine this relationship using nationally representative panel data and fixed effect models to account for confounding factors and unobserved heterogeneity. Results indicate that MP ownership is associated with increased income diversification, particularly through on‐farm and off‐farm self‐employment, as well as non‐earned income. This relationship is more pronounced in households with lower levels of education and deprived areas. In addition, owning a MP is also found to decrease poverty via income diversification. Therefore, policies aimed at enhancing access to mobile technologies could create a resilient income portfolio by decreasing transaction costs and improving market efficiency, ultimately mitigating poverty in rural regions.

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孟加拉国农村的移动电话、收入多样化和减贫

移动电话（MPs）的广泛使用为创造就业和自营职业机会提供了可能。虽然已有多项研究记录了移动电话对收入的影响，但尚未充分探讨移动电话所有权与通过收入多样化减少贫困之间的联系。本文旨在利用具有全国代表性的面板数据和固定效应模型来研究这种关系，以考虑混杂因素和未观察到的异质性。结果表明，MP 所有权与收入多样化的增加有关，特别是通过农场内和农场外的自营职业以及非工资收入。这种关系在教育水平较低的家庭和贫困地区更为明显。此外，还发现拥有 MP 可以通过收入多样化减少贫困。因此，旨在促进获得移动技术的政策可以通过降低交易成本和提高市场效率来创造有弹性的收入组合，最终减轻农村地区的贫困。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Review of Development Economics Multiple-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

6.20%

发文量

109

期刊介绍： The Review of Development Economics is a leading journal publishing high-quality research in development economics. It publishes rigorous analytical papers, theoretical and empirical, which deal with contemporary growth problems of developing countries, including the transition economies. The Review not only serves as a link between theorists and practitioners, but also builds a bridge between development economists and their colleagues in related fields. While the level of the Review of Development Economics is academic, the materials presented are of value to policy makers and researchers, especially those in developing countries.