Time-Intensive Information Technology and Human Welfare in Developing Countries

This paper is concerned with the scope for developing countries to benefit from the Internet in non-synchronous ways that is, in cases where some delay is involved in the delivery of information, as compared with the real-time alternative used in developed countries. The first part of the paper draws on insights from Becker and others, to argue that poor people in poor countries are wont to exchange (relatively abundant) time for reductions in the cost of Internet use. The second part of the paper then examines whether such time-intensive products actually exist and to the extent they do, how the required degree of cost reductions are effected in practice. I conclude that time-intensive Internet technology represents a highly promising opportunity for developing countries to close the digital divide, an opportunity that warrants serious academic scrutiny.