Working Paper: NBER ID: w21339
Authors: Pascaline Dupas; Anthony Keats; Jonathan Robinson
Abstract: The welfare impact of expanding access to bank accounts depends on whether accounts crowd out pre-existing financial relationships, or whether private gains from accounts are shared within social networks. To study the effect of accounts on financial linkages, we provided free bank accounts to a random subset of 885 households. Within households, we randomized which spouse was offered an account and find no evidence of negative spillovers to spouses. Across households, we document positive spillovers: treatment households become less reliant on grown children and siblings living outside their village, and become more supportive of neighbors and friends within their village.
Keywords: savings accounts; interpersonal financial relationships; field experiment; rural Kenya
JEL Codes: C93; D14; G21; O16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Providing free bank accounts to a random subset of households (G59) | No evidence of adverse spillovers (F69) |
| Providing free bank accounts to a random subset of households (G59) | Positive spillovers (F69) |
| Households receiving accounts are 9 percentage points less likely to receive remittance-type transfers from distant relatives (F24) | Households become less reliant on grown children and siblings living outside their village (J12) |
| Households receiving accounts (D14) | Net contributions to give-and-take relationships within the village increase by 12 percentage points (D64) |
| Access to savings accounts enables households to rely less on external support (D14) | Foster stronger financial ties locally (F65) |
| Treatment effects on inter-household transfers (H31) | Significant treatment effects on inter-household transfers (H31) |
| No significant effects on intrahousehold transfers (H31) | No significant effects on intrahousehold transfers (H31) |