Replication data for: Digital Financial Services Go a Long Way: Transaction Costs and Financial Inclusion

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Pierre Bachas; Paul Gertler; Sean Higgins; Enrique Seira

Version: View help for Version V1

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Project Citation:

Bachas, Pierre, Gertler, Paul, Higgins, Sean, and Seira, Enrique. Replication data for: Digital Financial Services Go a Long Way: Transaction Costs and Financial Inclusion. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2018. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2019-10-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/E114434V1

Project Description

Summary: Debit cards reduce the travel distance to access bank accounts and can increase financial inclusion. We show that in Mexico, cash transfer beneficiaries who already received their transfers in bank accounts and subsequently received debit cards reduce their median distance to access the account from 4.8 to 1.3 kilometers and report being less likely to forgo important activities (childcare, work) to withdraw their transfer. Using account level data, we find a strong negative correlation between the reduction in travel distance and financial activity: beneficiaries facing the largest reductions in distance increase both their number of withdrawals and their savings balances.

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:
      D23 Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
      E42 Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System; Payment Systems
      G21 Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
      O16 Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

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Published Versions

V1 [2019-10-12]

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