HELPING THE POOR TO BE MORE EFFICIENT.

HELPING THE VERY POOR TO BE MORE EFFICIENT. The post I linked to yesterday pointed out that many of those earning from one dollar a day to ten dollars a day can be classified as having tiny businesses. Sara Corbett’s article is filled with examples of how a cellphone can help these people be more productive and have higher incomes: a housekeeper with new customers, a porter, rickshaw drivers, prostitutes, shopkeepers, day laborers and a man who runs errands. Cellphone facilities also provide an important new kind of business opportunity. Grameen Phone, a branch of Grameen Bank, which pioneered microloans, has started the careers of over 250,000 “phone ladies” in Bangladesh by providing microcredit for them to establish village phone centers. I believe, as I awkwardly said here that “there is great value in inculcating at the micro level market habits and market thinking.”