Is Mobile Money Changing Rural Africa? Evidence from a Field Experiment

Catia Batista and Pedro Vicente

No 16101, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Rural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa are typically underserved by financial services. Mobile money brings a substantial reduction in the transaction costs of remittances. We follow the introduction of mobile money for the first time in rural villages of Mozambique using a randomized field experiment. We find that mobile money increased migration out of these villages, where we observe lower agricultural activity and investment. At the same time, remittances received and welfare of rural households increased, particularly when facing geo-referenced village-level floods and household-level idiosyncratic shocks. Our work suggests that mobile money can accelerate urbanization and structural change in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords: technology adoption; structural change; agriculture; investment; remittances; migration; mobile money; insurance; Mozambique; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G20 O12 O15 O16 O33 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2023-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev, nep-exp, nep-mig, nep-mon and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published online in: Review of Economics and Statistics , 29 May 2023

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Related works:
Working Paper: Is Mobile Money Changing Rural Africa? Evidence from a Field Experiment (2021)
Working Paper: Is mobile money changing rural Africa? Evidence from a field experiment (2018)
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