Poverty and Migration in the Digital Age: Experimental Evidence on Mobile Banking in Bangladesh

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lee, Jean N.; Morduch, Jonathan; Ravindran, Saravana; Abu Shonchoy; Zaman, Hassan
• 署名单位: The World Bank; New York University; National University of Singapore; State University System of Florida; Florida International University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20190067
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 38-71
• 关键词: money; INFORMATION; TECHNOLOGY; MARKETS; welfare; phones

摘要

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.