For example, the economist Robert Jensen recently showed what happens when you give impoverished fisherman mobile phones.

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One example is the analysis of fish prices on the coast of Kerala, in southern India, carried out in 2007 by Robert Jensen, an economist at Harvard University.

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By examining historical data for the price of fish as mobile-phone coverage was extended down the coast of Kerala in southern India between 1997 and 2001, for example, Robert Jensen of Harvard University showed that access to mobile phones made markets much more efficient, eliminating wasted catches and thereby bringing down consumer prices by 4% and increasing fishermen's profits by 8%.

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The authors, Mitchell Conover of the University of Richmond, Gerald Jensen of Northern Illinois University, Robert Johnson of the CFA Institute and Jeffrey Mercer of Texas Tech University, studied data from December 1970 through August 2007.

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