American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Resisting Social Pressure in the Household Using Mobile Money: Experimental Evidence on Microenterprise Investment in Uganda
American Economic Review
vol. 114,
no. 5, May 2024
(pp. 1415–47)
Abstract
I examine whether changing the form of disbursement of a microfinance loan enables female microfinance borrowers to overcome intra-household sharing pressure and grow their businesses. Using a field experiment with 3,000 borrowers in Uganda, I compare the disbursement of a loan as cash to disbursement onto a digital account. After 8 months, women who received their microfinance loan on the digital account had 11 percent higher (US$70) business capital and 15 percent higher (US$18) profits compared to those who received their loan as cash. Impacts were greatest for women who experienced pressure to share money with others in the household at baseline.Citation
Riley, Emma. 2024. "Resisting Social Pressure in the Household Using Mobile Money: Experimental Evidence on Microenterprise Investment in Uganda." American Economic Review, 114 (5): 1415–47. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20220717Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C93 Field Experiments
- D13 Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
- G51 Household Finance: Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- O12 Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
- O16 Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance