Mobile Money, Individuals’ Payments, Remittances, and Investments: Evidence from the Ashanti Region, Ghana

Emmanuel Kwablah Apiors and Aya Suzuki
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Emmanuel Kwablah Apiors: Graduate Program in Sustainability Science Global Leadership Initiative (GPSS-GLI), The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8563, Japan

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-26

Abstract: While many studies that are focused on mobile money concern the effects of mobile money on consumption and informal risk-sharing, little evidence is provided on how mobile money influences payments and microbusiness investment for low-income people. We estimate the effects of access to mobile money on individuals’ payments and income-generating activities by using data from the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Based on propensity-score matching and propensity-score weighted regression, we find that participation in mobile money is not dependent on individuals’ financial status. We also observe that mobile-money users are likely to send and receive larger volumes of payments and remittances. We further find that mobile-money users are more likely to save higher amounts, invest more in education, microbusinesses, land, and buildings, and also consume more relative to non-users.

Keywords: mobile money; financial inclusion; payments; investments; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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