Working Paper: NBER ID: w14693
Authors: Pascaline Dupas; Jonathan Robinson
Abstract: Does limited access to formal savings services impede business growth in poor countries? To shed light on this question, we randomized access to non-interest-bearing bank accounts among two types of self-employed individuals in rural Kenya: market vendors (who are mostly women) and men working as bicycle-taxi drivers. Despite large withdrawal fees, a substantial share of market women used the accounts, were able to save more, and increased their productive investment and private expenditures. We see no impact for bicycle-taxi drivers. These results imply significant barriers to savings and investment for market women in our study context. Further work is needed to understand what those barriers are, and to test whether the results generalize to other types of businesses or individuals.
Keywords: savings constraints; microenterprise development; field experiment; Kenya
JEL Codes: G21; L26; O12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Access to non-interest bearing bank accounts (G21) | Savings among market women (E21) |
| Access to non-interest bearing bank accounts (G21) | Private expenditures among market women (D19) |
| Access to non-interest bearing bank accounts (G21) | Savings among bicycle taxi drivers (R48) |