here I think it's less about "poverty" (non-US acedemic budgets are still high, though not in the same sphere), but it's about having red tape when it comes to software. My experience doing a PhD in Japan was: Everything you can touch was basically a free for all - including $500 keyboards and $10k Mac Pros, especially if you are a valued researcher. But software, oh man, how can we prove receipt of goods to accounting...