Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara

Transaction Costs in Agriculture: From the Planting Decision to Selling at the Wholesale Market: A Case-Study on the Feeder Area of the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre in Sri Lanka

With the increasing concern with regards to reducing poverty in the world, lowering transaction costs within the value chain is one of the key elements to ensuring growth in agriculture which will in turn have a significant impact in reducing poverty. This paper presents the results of a study to identify the information-related transaction costs of selected small-holder farmers who sell their produce at Sri Lanka’s largest wholesale agriculture market. It then analyses the potential reduction of these costs if they were to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in obtaining such information.This study finds that information related costs form 70 percent of the total transaction costs, which is 15 percent of the total production cost, incurred by these farmers. Therefore, it is argued that simple mobile phones can reduce these costs significantly. Such information can help farmers not only in deciding where and at what price to sell their produce, but also in reducing the high search costs associated with locating outlets that has (subsidized) fertilizer available for distribution on a given day.Overall, it is postulated that benefits to farmers can become much greater if a phone-based ICT platform could tie the selling decision with that of the decision to grow a particular produce while incorporating information needs of the farmer throughout the value chain. It is believed that this a reasonable approach because the mobile phone is expected to reach 90 percent of the world’s population by 2010 (GSMA, 2006), including these farmers.

Who's Got the Phone? The Gendered Use of Telephones at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Much has been said about women’s access to and use of the telephone. Many studies conclude that a significant gender divide in access exists particularly in developing countries. Women are also said to use telephones in a different manner from men –making and receiving more calls, spending more time on calls, and using telephones primarily for ‘relationship maintenance’ purposes, while men make fewer calls, shorter calls and use telephones primarily for instrumental purposes. However, much of this research on usage patterns is based on small-sample studies in affluent developed countries. The article provides evidence that a significant gender divide in access to telephones exists in Pakistan and India, to a lesser extent in Sri Lanka, but is absent in the Philippines and Thailand. This article also challenges some of the findings of studies which claim that women’s and men’s use is fundamentally different, shedding light on women’s access to and use of telecom services at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) in five Emerging Asian markets. The article is based on an 8,600 sample study of telephone users in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Thailand, focusing on the BOP, but also looking at the ‘middle and top’ of the pyramid to ascertain whether these findings are unique to the BOP or not.

Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Findings from a Five Country Study

This paper looks at telecom use at the bottom of the pyramid, or BOP in emerging Asia, where much of the ‘next billion’ subscribers are expected to come from. It explores the potential for new customers, and issues of affordability at the BOP. The findings reveal potential for more than 140 new connections at the BOP in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Thailand alone, with almost two thirds being mobile; this will have large implications for the uptake of emerging mobile applications. It also looks at the ‘gendered’ use of telecom at the BOP, revealing a gender divide in India, Pakistan and to a small extent in Sri Lanka too. The policy implications of the findings are briefly examined.

Impact of Information Asymmetry and Servicer Incentives on Foreclosure of Securitized Mortgages

In this paper I examine how servicer characteristics affect foreclosure rates of delinquent securitized mortgages. Using a sample of mortgages originated by IndyMac Bank and Countrywide Home Loan Servicing that underwent a change in servicer during the financial crisis period, I first show using a difference-in-difference methodology that the servicer has a significant effect on foreclosure rates. Consistent with the idea that information asymmetry affect foreclosure rates, I find a significantly lower foreclosure rate among mortgages where the originator also acts as servicer. Finally, foreclosure rates are ceteris paribus higher for servicers that experienced high loan growth in the past, which suggests that servicer capacity constraints affected foreclosure rates.

Entertainment as a Platform for More-than-Voice Services

Mobile phones are being used to improve one’s economic situation by increasing the efficiency of day-to-day decision making by reducing transaction costs. At the same time, entertainment services on mobile phones, while not bringing any productive value to the user, are quite popular. However the general perception is that economic-related services are much less popular than entertainment-related services. If that is the case and if entertainment platforms could be used to push utilitarian (used to mean economic-related) services then it might be possible to use mobile phones to further improve livelihood outcomes of users. This paper considers those who use utilitarian services and those who do not in order to assess if the drivers of such use are significantly different from each other. The thinking is that if they are not significantly different, it would be possible to leverage entertainment platforms to offer more-than-voice services including utilitarian services. Considering a large sample at the bottom of the pyramid in five emerging Asian countries the findings dampen the enthusiasm that it is possible, without any additional appeal, to use entertainment platforms to push utilitarian type services via mobile phones. In light of this finding, marketing strategists and policy makers as well as application developers would need to think again about how to leverage the fairly extensive use of entertainment platforms to push economically beneficial services.