Financial Technology Adoption: Network Externalities of Cashless Payments in Mexico

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Higgins, Sean
• 署名单位: Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20201952
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 3469-3512
• 关键词: transaction costs; constraints; management; services; long

摘要

Do coordination failures constrain financial technology adoption? Exploiting the Mexican government's rollout of1 million debit cards to poor households from 2009 to 2012, I examine responses on both sides of the market and find important spillovers and distributional impacts. On the supply side, small retail firms adopted point-of-sale terminals to accept card payments. On the demand side, this led to a 21 percent increase in other consumers' card adoption. The supply-side technology adoption response had positive effects on both richer consumers and small retail firms: richer consumers shifted 13 percent of their supermarket consumption to small retailers, whose sales and profits increased. ( JEL E42, L25, L81, O14, O33)