Abstract:
For the developing world, instant connectivity was first established through the expansion of second-generation (2G) mobile networks. Leveraging exogenous variation in network disruptions induced by lightning strikes as an instrumental variable, we analyze panel data from 2,040 regions across 13 developing countries between 1990 and 2015. Our findings reveal economically meaningful increases in employment (approximately 32-43%), driven primarily by a shift from self-employment toward formal wage employment, notably within agriculture, coupled with substantial rises in unpaid labor among women.