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on Microfinance |
| By: | Jean N. Lee (World Bank); Jonathan Morduch (Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University); Saravana Ravindran (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore); Abu S. Shonchoy (Department of Economics, Florida International University) |
| Abstract: | Mobile banking and related digital financial technologies can make financial services cheaper and more widely accessible in low-income economies, but gender gaps persist. We present evidence from two connected field experiments in Bangladesh designed to encourage the adoption and use of mobile banking by poor, illiterate households. We show that training can dramatically increase adoption and usage by women. At the same time, women on average persist in using mobile banking at a lower rate than men. The study focuses on migrants and their families in Bangladesh. Despite large differences between female and male migrants in income and education, the first experiment shows that a training program led to a similarly large, positive impact on mobile banking usage by female and male migrants, increasing usage rates for both by about 45 percentage points. That led to increases in remittances sent to rural areas, reduced rural poverty, and increased rural consumption. Both female and male migrants in the treatment group, however, reported worse physical and emotional health, adding to health challenges reported by women across treatment and control groups. A second experiment explores whether the way that the technology was introduced and explained made an additional difference in narrowing gender gaps. Despite the lack of statistical power to detect small treatment impacts, we find suggestive evidence that the treatment increased mobile banking adoption by female migrants. |
| Keywords: | gender, financial inclusion, digital money, migration, field experiment, Bangladesh |
| JEL: | R23 O33 O16 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fiu:wpaper:2108&r=all |
| By: | Catia Batista; Sandra Sequeira; Pedro C. Vicente |
| Abstract: | We examine the complementarity between access to mobile savings accounts and improved financial management skills on the performance of female-led micro-enterprises in Mozambique. This combined support is associated with a large increase in both short and long-term firm profits and in financial security, when compared to the independent effect of each of these interventions. This support allowed female-headed micro-enterprises to close the gender gap in performance and financial literacy relative to their male counterparts. The main drivers of improved business performance are increased financial management practices (bookkeeping), an increase in accessible savings and reduced transfers to friends and relatives. |
| Keywords: | Microenterprise development, management, gender, mobile money, financial literacy, economic development |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:novafr:wp2104-1&r=all |
| By: | Simplice A. Asongu (Yaounde, Cameroon); Peter Agyemang-Mintah (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate); Rexon T. Nting (London, UK) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how the rule of law (i.e. law) modulates demand- and supply-side drivers of mobile money to influence mobile money innovations (i.e. mobile money accounts, the mobile phone used to send money and the mobile phone used to receive money) in developing countries. The following findings from Tobit regressions are established. First, from the demand-side linkages, law modulates: (i) bank accounts and automated teller machine (ATM) penetration for negative interactive relationships with mobile money innovations and (ii) bank sector concentration for a positive interactive relationship with mobile money accounts. Second, from supply-side linkages, law interacts with: (i) mobile subscriptions for a negative relationship with the mobile phone used to send money; (ii) mobile connectivity coverage for a negative nexus on the mobile phone used to receive money and (iii) mobile connectivity performance for a negative influence on the mobile phone used to send/receive money. Policy implications are discussed in the light of enhancing the rule of law as well as improving mobile phone subscription, connectivity and performance dynamics. |
| Keywords: | Mobile money; technology diffusion; financial inclusion; inclusive innovation |
| JEL: | D10 D14 D31 D60 O30 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exs:wpaper:21/021&r=all |