Got Technology? The Impact of Computers and Cellphoneson Productivity in a Diffi cult Business Climate:Evidence from Firms with Female Owners in Kenya

Firms in Kenya rely on technologies such as computers, cell-phones, and generators toovercome constraints associated with regulations, infrastructure, security, workforce,corruption, and finance. This study shows that such reliance has significant positive impactson productivity as measured by value-added per worker, especially for firms with femaleprincipal owners. The exogenous component of technology ownership is isolated by usinginformation on the regional presence of missionary schools from Kenya’s colonial past, aswell as geographical indicators such as rainfall, changes in forest cover, and averageregional elevation. Results indicate that for firms with female owners, technology adoptionimproves value-added per worker by about 49 percentage points. It is also statisticallyevident that for such firms, the ownership of technologies such as computers, cell-phones,and generators succeeds in mitigating the costs of business obstacles. For male-ownedfirms, such patterns are absent....