Global Poverty and the Cell Phone

A magazine article in the New York Times of April 13th has the rather mistaken and misleading title “Can the Cell Phone End Global Poverty?” (Hat tip: Abhishek Sarda). The article title is misleading because it doesn’t even remotely attempt to answer that question. It is instead about what is called a “human-behavior researcher” or “user anthropologist,” in this case someone who works for Nokia and essentially tries to figure out how people actually use their phones and thus how phone companies should design phones for greater usability.

The Mega-region

The April 12th, 2008 Wall Street Journal has an article, “The Rise of the Mega Region” (Hat tip Pankaj Kumar) which argues that rather than entire countries, the proper unit of analysis in the context of economic growth and competitiveness should be the mega-regions.