Development
Research
01.10.2017

Ethnic politics and the diffusion of mobile technology in Africa

Abstract
We analyze the effect of an ethnic group’s country-level population share on the mobile phone infrastructure in Africa. Consistent with the African power-sharing arrangements documented by Francois et al. (2015), we find that larger ethnic groups benefit from a higher concentration of mobile phone infrastructure and a higher fraction of UMTS cell sites.
#africa
#powersharing
#mobilephones
#technologydiffusion