The Interplay among Savings Accounts and Network-Based Financial Arrangements: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Margherita Comola () and Silvia Prina ()
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Margherita Comola: Paris School of Economics
Silvia Prina: Northeastern University

No 16303, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper studies how formal financial access affects network-based financial arrangements. We use a field experiment that granted access to a savings account to a random subset of households in 19 Nepalese villages. Exploiting a unique panel dataset that follows all bilateral informal financial transactions before and after the intervention, we show that households that were offered access to an account increased their loans and total transfers to others, independent of the treatment status of the receiver. The increase seemed to be driven by treatment households with more assets and greater financial inclusion at baseline.

Keywords: financial arrangements; networks; savings; financial access (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D14 G21 O16 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2023-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-exp, nep-fdg, nep-fle, nep-iue and nep-net
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Published - published in: Economic Journal, 2023, 133 (649), 516 - 535

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