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Senegal has experienced a rapid expansion in fixed and mobile broadband internet infrastructure over the past decade. This paper examines the relationship between access to broadband internet and household welfare between 2011 and 2018 by integrating the latest two rounds of household budget surveys with data on the location of fiber-optic transmission nodes and coverage maps of 3G mobile technology. The results show that 3G coverage is associated with a 14 percent increase in total consumption and a 10 percent decline in extreme poverty. These results are robust to controlling for household demographics and other spatial characteristics, such as region fixed effects, road density, nighttime lights, and elevation above sea level, as well as for access to complementary digital infrastructure, such as 2G coverage or fixed broadband internet. The findings are also robust to an instrumental variable approach that relies on distance to 3G coverage in neighboring areas. These effects are larger among households in urban areas and households headed by men or younger cohorts. Although they are in the same direction, the welfare effects of proximity to fixed broadband infrastructure are not statistically significant.

Digital Infrastructure --- Household Consumption --- Inequality --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Information Technology --- Internet Connection --- Mobile Broadband --- Poverty --- Poverty Reduction

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This paper estimates the impacts of mobile broadband coverage on household consumption and poverty in Nigeria, the largest economy and mobile broadband market in Africa. The analysis exploits a unique dataset that integrates three waves of a nationally representative longitudinal household survey on living standards with information from Nigerian mobile operators on the deployment of mobile broadband (3G and 4G) coverage between 2010 and 2016. The estimates show that mobile broadband coverage had large and positive impacts on household consumption levels which increased over time, although at a decreasing rate. Mobile broadband coverage also reduces the proportion of households below the poverty line, driven by higher food and non-food consumption in rural households. These effects are mainly due to an increase in labor force participation and employment, particularly among women.

Digital Divide --- Employment --- Female Labor Force Participation --- Gender and Development --- Gender and Economics --- Gender Informatics --- Household Consumption --- ICT Economics --- Inequality --- Labor Force Participation --- Mobile Broadband --- Poverty --- Poverty Line --- Welfare Impact