Mobile Phones and Mozambique Farmers: Less Asymmetric Information and More Trader Competition?

We investigate the impact of search costs farmers and traders on prices, by measuring to what extent introduction mobile phones in Mozambique has affected maize producer retail market prices margins. Estimations are based weekly recorded white grain, from July 1997 December 2009, for 15 major markets Mozambique. find a margin increase varying 6.4% 11.5%, drop 8.1% 14.0%, supporting bias benefits towards traders. Hence, not less asymmetric information more trader competition, but rather reverse: benefit exploiting phone opportunities. Estimation results robust non-random roll-out network various other threats. Margin impacts correlate significantly with terminal prices. Household survey data yield an farm-gate that is consistent key result this study. Several farmer characteristics reveal weak plausible correlation