I have a theory. If you want to understand why some parts of the developing world are taking so long to develop, forget racism, unfair trade regulations, corruption, pollution or disease. Those are pieces of the puzzle, but the root of the problem is information asymmetry. Very simply, the Third World does not realize how badly it is being screwed.

I spent the summer working at an English-language newspaper in Uganda, an experience that gave root to this hypothesis. Two examples in particular jump to mind. Late in the summer, I traveled to Lake Albert, on the Congolese border, to cover the murder — by bandits — of a British geophysicist who had been part of a team surveying the vast, underwater petroleum deposits there. In the course of my reporting, I asked the subsistence fishermen that live along the shore whether they were concerned about the discovery of black gold under their land. Knowing the misery oil has wrought throughout Africa, from Nigeria to Sudan to Equatorial Guinea, I was surprised by their answer.

“We are expecting wealth,” a local councilman told me. “Our expectation is that everything will improve once drilling begins.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him what a long shot it was that he would see any windfall. With more access to information, the discovery of oil should have raised alarm bells among the fishermen. Instead, they sat and watched as prostitutes flooded the town, the exploration team’s detonations scared off fish and Congolese bandits, drawn by wealthy prospectors, wreaked more violence on the border.

A more immediate example of information asymmetry is the daily screw job Ugandan roasters pull on small coffee farmers. The price of coffee beans fluctuates daily, and rural growers, most without cellular phones or even access to a newspaper, rarely know the going rate. As a result, businessmen use this to their advantage, routinely paying cash-starved farmers far less than they deserve.

If you want to make a difference in the lives of millions of Ugandans, stop teaching locals to string beads for your college friends to buy. That’s not sustainable, and it’s not adding value to the local economy.

Instead, buy 100 cheap cell phones, distribute them around the countryside to local officials, and text the current prices for coffee every morning. For $5,000, you will have doubled the income of every impoverished coffee grower in Uganda.

The developing world also suffers from a different brand of information asymmetry: the richer nations’ oftentimes willful ignorance of the have-nots.

According to a 2006 Gallup poll, only 28 percent of Americans identify malaria as a “very serious” health issue around the world, despite the fact that the mosquito-borne disease kills a million people annually. A shocking 20 percent of Americans believe that the threat posed by malaria is “not serious” at all — presumably the same 20 percent that believes the moon landing was staged.

Another statistic, advanced by Bill Gates in his campus speech two months ago, is that 50 times more money is spent on research for a baldness cure than a malaria vaccine.

I find myself in a unique position among Americans. While in Uganda, I contracted falciparum malaria, Latin for “the kind of malaria that kills you.” I know what it’s like to lie in bed, freezing cold despite the fact that you are wearing every article of clothing you own, every bone feeling like it’s just been hit with a baseball bat, feverish nightmares punctuated only by trips to the bathroom to heave out whatever remains in your stomach. And since the parasite is tough to kill, there’s a slim chance that I may enjoy a recurrence.

A malaria vaccine would be a whole lot more useful to me than a baldness vaccine — I have, as it turns out, some of the nicest, softest hair on campus, and it ain’t going anywhere. The majority of American men will eventually lose their hair, but until Florida retirees start contracting malaria, Adam Smith’s invisible hand will continue cranking out Rogaine and Propecia.

Feel Dave’s hair at dherbert "at" stanford.edu.