ABSTRACT
Even though many parts of the developing world are in the midst of an information technology (IT) revolution which affects firms, households and all sectors of the economy, one would not think it from reading the scant academic literature on the topic. Tellingly, for example, there is little or nothing to be found on the subject in the latest versions of the major textbooks on economic development. Academic books are few and far between, 1 and only a small number of journals cited in the Social Science Citations Index (SSCI) is dedicated to the topic. 2 All in all it seems that academia has not kept up with developments on the ground, which include most notably widespread penetration of mobile phones even in some of the poorest countries (see below). Apart from that discussed in Chapter 12, for example, there is no adequate measure of the leapfrogging underlying the widespread penetration of mobile phones.
