Comments on: India: Mobile phone ownership and toilets http://lirneasia.net/2012/03/india-mobile-phone-ownership-and-toilets/ a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific Mon, 20 May 2013 09:36:56 +0000 hourly 1 By: Rohan Samarajiva http://lirneasia.net/2012/03/india-mobile-phone-ownership-and-toilets/comment-page-1/#comment-48671 Rohan Samarajiva Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:51:00 +0000 http://lirneasia.net/?p=13287#comment-48671 The WSJ piles in:
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/03/28/economics-journal-what-connects-cellphones-and-toilets/

]]> By: Rohan Samarajiva http://lirneasia.net/2012/03/india-mobile-phone-ownership-and-toilets/comment-page-1/#comment-48666 Rohan Samarajiva Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:35:38 +0000 http://lirneasia.net/?p=13287#comment-48666 “If one wants a legitimate mobile/phone to toilet comparison, what one has to do is work with data from the demand side: census or representative-sample household surveys. I have been looking at the Sri Lanka Household Income and Expenditure Survey for 2009-10. It has data on whether households have mobiles, fixed phones or both, along with data on toilets for exclusive use of the household. Here is analysis.

It is only in the richest province, the Western Province that contributes around half the GDP, that the number of households with phones comes even close to the number of households with toilets for exclusive use. You could say this is Sri Lanka, and therefore the toilet numbers are high. My point is not to quibble about that. The issue is the error of comparing what cannot be compared. What can be compared are toilets in households and phones/mobiles in households. If that is done, India will not look too bad.”

http://lirneasia.net/2011/10/the-fallacy-of-comparing-toilets-in-homes-and-mobile-telephone-penetration/

I did not say India will look good. Just not bad.

]]>