TY - JOUR
T1 - Banking the unbanked? Evidence from three countries
AU - Dupas, Pascaline
AU - Karlan, Dean
AU - Robinson, Jonathan
AU - Ubfal, Diego
N1 - Funding Information:
*Dupas: Economics Department, Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 and NBER (email: pdupas@stanford.edu); Karlan: Economics Department, Yale University, P.O. Box 208269, New Haven, CT 06520, IPA, J-PAL, and NBER (email: dean.karlan@yale.edu); Robinson: Economics Department, University of California at Santa Cruz, 457 Engineering 2, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 and NBER (email: jmrtwo@ucsc.edu); Ubfal: Economics Department, Bocconi University, Via Roentgen 1, 20136, Milan, IGIER, IZA, and LEAP (email: diego.ubfal@unibocconi.it). The protocols for this multisite study were approved by the IRBs of UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, and Stanford University. The multisite trial is registered in the American Economic Association’s registry for randomized controlled trials (ID AEARCTR-0000083). We thank Aaron Dibner-Dunlap for outstanding research coordination, Alejandra Aponte, Pia Basurto, Natalie Greene, Rachel Levenson, Catlan Reardon, Michael Roscitt, and Andreas Tiemman for their dedicated field research assistance, and Erica Chuang for her work on data curation. This study was implemented through IPA Uganda, IPA Malawi, and JPAL Latin America, and funded through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dupas gratefully acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation. The authors declare having no financial interests in the study results.
PY - 2018/4/1
Y1 - 2018/4/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045065322&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85045065322&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1257/app.20160597
DO - 10.1257/app.20160597
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045065322
VL - 10
SP - 257
EP - 297
JO - American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
JF - American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
SN - 1945-7782
IS - 2
ER -