TY - JOUR AU - Batzilis,Dimitrios AU - Dinkelman,Taryn AU - Oster,Emily AU - Thornton,Rebecca AU - Zanera,Deric TI - New cellular networks in Malawi: Correlates of service rollout and network performance JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 16616 PY - 2010 Y2 - December 2010 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16616 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16616.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Dimitrios Batzilis University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637 E-Mail: batzilis@gmail.com Taryn Dinkelman Department of Economics H. Box 6106 Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755 Tel: 603/646-2099 Fax: 603/646-2122 E-Mail: taryn.l.dinkelman@dartmouth.edu Emily Oster University of Chicago Booth School of Business 5807 South Woodlawn Ave Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: 773/834-1552 Fax: 773-834-8172 E-Mail: eoster@uchicago.edu Rebecca Thornton University of Michigan 611 Tappan St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Tel: 734-763-3720 E-Mail: rebeccal@umich.edu Deric Zanera Malawi National Statistical Office P.O. Box 333 Zomba Malawi E-Mail: dzanera@statistics.gov.mw M3 - presented at "African Development Successes Conference", July 18-20, 2010 AB - Cellular technologies have become increasingly important in the developing world; infrastructure for mobile networks has expanded dramatically over the past two decades giving access to remote areas without previous phone service. Despite this expansion, relatively little is known about the correlates of the rollout of cellular phone networks or the performance of these networks. Since the rollout of cellular networks has been largely spearheaded by an active private sector in telecommunications, how demand-side and cost-side factors affect the timing of rollout and quality of network service is of particular interest. In this paper we use new data to estimate the correlates of cellular phone access and network performance across rural areas of Malawi. We compile a dataset which combines administrative data of the entire cellular network of Malawi with geographic and Census data to describe the rollout and the performance of the cellular network measured by the dropped call rate. We find that both demand-side and cost-side factors are important in determining the timing of network access, while demand-side factors appear most relevant for the dropped call rate, one metric of network quality. ER -