Thread by @glad_1723

Are mobile phones a Liberation Technology?

This week, we read a great new paper (forthcoming Econometrica) by Manacorda & @tesei_andrea who investigate whether mobile phone coverage can be linked to the occurrence protests.

#econfriday

Idea: Protests often occur in response to economic shocks or unpleasant fiscal policies. However, protest organizers need to i) mobilize and ii) coordinate a large enough mass of people for a protest to take place – mobile phones are a huge help with both these tasks.

Why phones? A huge rise in the availability of mobile phone service across the African continent enormously facilitated life: mobile internet and SMS services have become important tools for, e.g., banking, election monitoring, health information, or disaster relief operations.

Phones and protests: With mobile phones and social media, messages can reach millions of people within seconds. Hence, phone coverage should make protests more likely by i) informing people about reasons to protest and ii) coordinate them to meet at a given place and time.

Data: The authors use a very detailed indicator for the availability of a mobile phone signal (GSM) with a 1-23km precision, and combine this with several georeferenced reports on protest events from GDELT, ACLED, and SCAD.

Identification: What if areas with more protests also have better phone coverage for some unobserved reasons? The authors came up with a great IV: Lightning strikes, which reportedly destroy phone infrastructure and slow down their construction, but are not connected to protests.

Findings: Mobile phone coverage increases protest likelihood significantly by up to 23 percent – though ONLY in times when a country’s economy is going through recession. Therefore, both channels seem to be important: coordination AND the existence of bad news.

Conclusion: Cool paper, super detailed data & great identification! All the econometric findings are well explained with theoretical models and thoughts. So, spread the word in your social media & mobilize the masses to also enjoy this great weekend-read!

dropbox.com/s/fh2jyj6x48d2…