Poverty and Migration in the Digital Age: Experimental Evidence on Mobile Banking in Bangladesh
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 13,
no. 1, January 2021
(pp. 38-71)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
Rapid urbanization is reshaping economies and intensifying spatial inequalities. In Bangladesh, we experimentally introduced mobile banking to very poor rural households and family members who had migrated to the city, testing whether mobile technology can reduce inequality by modernizing traditional ways to transfer money. One year later, for active mobile banking users, urban-to-rural remittances increased by 26 percent of the baseline mean. Rural consumption increased by 7.5 percent, and extreme poverty fell. Rural households borrowed less, saved more, sent additional migrants, and consumed more in the lean season. Urban migrants experienced less poverty and saved more but bore costs, reporting worse health.Citation
Lee, Jean N., Jonathan Morduch, Saravana Ravindran, Abu Shonchoy, and Hassan Zaman. 2021. "Poverty and Migration in the Digital Age: Experimental Evidence on Mobile Banking in Bangladesh." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 13 (1): 38-71. DOI: 10.1257/app.20190067Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
- G21 Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
- G51 Household Finance: Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
- I32 Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- O16 Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
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