abstract: 'Rural households in developing countries often depend on agriculture for

  their livelihoods. However, many also pursue off-farm economic

  activities either to complement their farm income or because they lack

  access to agricultural land. Rural off-farm employment is often informal

  and temporary. Searching for jobs can be associated with high

  transaction costs, which may be a constraint on some households''

  participation in off-farm employment. The increasing spread of mobile

  phones may help to reduce these transaction costs. Here, we test the

  hypothesis that mobile phone ownership increases rural households''

  participation in off-farm employment and-through this mechanism-also

  improves household income. We use nationally representative panel data

  from rural India and regression models with household fixed effects to

  control for confounding factors and unobserved heterogeneity. We find

  that mobile phone ownership is positively associated with the likelihood

  of participating in various types of off-farm employment, including

  casual wage labour, salaried employment and non-agricultural

  self-employment. This association is larger in female-headed than in

  male-headed households. The estimates also show that mobile phone

  ownership is positively associated with household income, partly

  channelled through the off-farm employment mechanism.'
affiliation: 'Rajkhowa, P (Corresponding Author), Univ Bonn, Ctr Dev Res ZEF, Bonn,
  Germany.

  Rajkhowa, Pallavi; Qaim, Matin, Univ Bonn, Ctr Dev Res ZEF, Bonn, Germany.

  Qaim, Matin, Univ Bonn, Inst Food \& Resource Econ, Bonn, Germany.'
author: Rajkhowa, Pallavi and Qaim, Matin
author-email: diptarajkhowa@gmail.com
author_list:
- family: Rajkhowa
  given: Pallavi
- family: Qaim
  given: Matin
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1111/1477-9552.12480
earlyaccessdate: MAR 2022
eissn: 1477-9552
files: []
issn: 0021-857X
journal: JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
keywords: household income; ICT; India; mobile phones; off-farm employment
keywords-plus: 'NONFARM EMPLOYMENT; ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT; MARKET-INFORMATION; ICT;

  POVERTY; ACCESS; INEQUALITY; PRODUCTIVITY; TECHNOLOGY; DYNAMICS'
language: English
month: SEP
number: '3'
number-of-cited-references: '43'
orcid-numbers: 'Rajkhowa, Pallavi/0000-0002-3265-2420

  Qaim, Matin/0000-0003-4143-0763'
pages: 789-805
papis_id: 2fc4a7aafdc515befdabd40311a846bb
ref: Rajkhowa2022mobilephones
researcherid-numbers: 'Rajkhowa, Pallavi/AAG-4433-2020

  Qaim, Matin/P-4489-2016'
times-cited: '14'
title: Mobile phones, off-farm employment and household income in rural India
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000762341200001
usage-count-last-180-days: '16'
usage-count-since-2013: '64'
volume: '73'
web-of-science-categories: Agricultural Economics \& Policy; Economics
year: '2022'