The Interplay Among Savings Accounts and Network-Based Financial Arrangements

Evidence from a Field Experiment

Bibliographic Data

ID9712417
AuthorsMargherita Comola (0000-0001-6836-1759, University Paris-Saclay & Paris School of Economics , France), Silvia Prina (0009-0002-1105-4111, Northeastern University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume133
Issue649
Pages516-535
Publication date2022-12-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ej/ueac053
OpenAlexW4294955102
LanguageEN
References cited27

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

Bank account · Baseline (sea · Business · Economics · Field (mathematics · Financial inclusion · Financial services · Intervention (counseling · Political science · Savings account · Finance · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Psychology

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