This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. AEA Papers and Proceedings
  4. May 2020
  5. Cashing In (and Out): Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Mobile Money in Malawi

Cashing In (and Out): Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Mobile Money in Malawi

  • Shilpa Aggarwal
  • Valentina Brailovskaya
  • Jonathan Robinson
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 110, May 2020
(pp. 599-604)
Download Full Text PDF

Abstract

We present results from a randomized control trial on access to mobile money with 480 entrepreneurs in Malawi. Treated individuals received account opening assistance and basic training on mobile money and were encouraged to save. Withdrawal fees were waived. Seventy-three percent of treatment respondents made at least 1 deposit, and 53 percent made at least 5. Treatment respondents reallocated labor from business to agriculture, and we find some evidence for an increase in expenditures. Evidence suggests that treatment effects were driven in large part by respondents using the accounts for savings.

Citation

Aggarwal, Shilpa, Valentina Brailovskaya, and Jonathan Robinson. 2020. "Cashing In (and Out): Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Mobile Money in Malawi." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 110: 599-604. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20201087

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • E42 Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System; Payment Systems
  • G21 Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
  • G51 Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
  • G53 Household Finance: Financial Literacy
  • L26 Entrepreneurship
  • O16 Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance