American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics
ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)
Banking the Unbanked? Evidence from Three Countries
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
(pp. 257–97)
(Complimentary)
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.Citation
Dupas, Pascaline, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Robinson, and Diego Ubfal. 2018. "Banking the Unbanked? Evidence from Three Countries." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10 (2): 257–97. DOI: 10.1257/app.20160597Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
- G21 Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
- O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
- O16 Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance