The former president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has pointed out that the country’s new middle class is very different from the one Latin America experienced in the 1940s and 1970s: more dependent on the market than on the state.

It’s no coincidence that this market-driven generation is buying up cell phones like crazy.

What that means is market-driven economies, and the entrepreneurs that thrive in them, rely on real-time communications to run their businesses.

As emerging economies come into their own, one of the first improvements you’ll see is a new communications system.

Unlike industrialized nations, emerging economies can leapfrog directly into state-of-the art communications networks. They don’t to have worry about retrofitting older systems into the new technologies. They are digital right out of the gate.

Cell phones represent the biggest breakthrough the new digital infrastructures of developing nations. At the micro level, individuals once completely isolated by cultural, geographical and economic limitations can suddenly participate in the global market.

At the macro level, new communications systems support an influx of industries — creating new jobs, new consumers and new opportunities.

Research shows that greater cell-phone usage can stimulate economic growth in emerging economies. Based on market research in China, India and the Philippines, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that raising wireless penetration by 10 percentage points can lead to an increase in gross domestic product of about 0.5%, or around $12 billion for an economy the size of China.

Africa, China and India are now being thought of as the cash cows of the mobile phone industry. As penetration rates in many developed regions such as Europe approach 90% or higher, the cell-phone industry is looking to new, untapped markets.

Today, there are approximately 2.2 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide. Analysts forecast that number will jump to 3 billion by the end of this year, with much of the growth in emerging economies like India, China, Africa and Latin America.

Most recently, the demand in emerging markets fueled worldwide growth Q1 2008, according to a recent report from research firm, Gartner Group.

Gartner said worldwide sales had increased by 13.6% during that period in the first quarter compared to Q1 2007. Much of this growth came from developing markets.

Asian cell-phone sales jumped 26.6% from the same quarter in 2007, driven by demand in India and South Korea. Sales also increased by 25.8% in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. And the biggest growth was seen in Latin America where sales increased 28.4% compared with Q1 2007.

Meanwhile, sales in Western Europe plunged about 16.4%, the first decline in sales in this region since 2001 when Gartner first began tracking the sector.

Cell phones are a hidden indicator of emerging market performance.

That’s because cell phones, and other communications technologies, open new markets by reducing distances.

Bangladesh has become a classic case study for the benefits of cell phones on the local economy.

In the late 1990s the Grameen Bank made micro loans available to villagers in this poverty-stricken nation. In short time, farmers were able to check prices in different markets before selling produce, and eventually allowing the quick and easy transfer of funds. The advantages of cell-phone economics spread rapidly through the country and stimulated other economic activities among the rural poor.

While this may seem trivial at first, this is how the middle class is born. Cell phones blur or eliminate class boundaries to success. People can take a greater role in personal, business and public lives to stimulate emerging markets.

Wider access means more money, better educations and the kinds of political reforms that can lead to market-driven democracies.

Investors with a penchant for emerging markets are missing a key indicator when they ignore cell-phone penetration. After all, imagine what the U.S. economy would be like without cell phones?