Banking the unbanked? Evidence from three countries

Pascaline Dupas; Dean Karlan; Jonathan Robinson; Diego Ubfal

doi:10.1257/app.20160597

Banking the unbanked? Evidence from three countries

Pascaline Dupas, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Robinson, Diego Ubfal

Finance

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

We experimentally test the impact of expanding access to basic bank accounts in Uganda, Malawi, and Chile. Over two years, 17, 10, and 3 percent of treatment individuals made five or more deposits, respectively. Average monthly deposits in treatment accounts were sizable among users, corresponding to the seventy-ninth, ninety-first, and ninety-sixth percentiles of baseline savings. Survey data show no discernible intention-to-treat effects on savings or any downstream outcomes, though we cannot reject large effect sizes for active users. Results suggest that policies merely focused on expanding access to basic accounts are unlikely to improve welfare noticeably on average.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	257-297
Number of pages	41
Journal	American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Volume	10
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20160597
State	Published - Apr 1 2018

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ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)

Cite this

Dupas, P., Karlan, D., Robinson, J., & Ubfal, D. (2018). Banking the unbanked? Evidence from three countries. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 10(2), 257-297. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20160597

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Access to Document

10.1257/app.20160597