Resisting social pressure in the household using mobile money: Experimental evidence on microenterprise investment in Uganda
- The American Economic Review
- 114(5), May, 2024: p.1415-1447
I examine whether changing the form of disbursement of a microfinance loan enables female microfinance borrowers to overcome intra-household sharing pressure and grow their businesses. Using a field experiment with 3,000 borrowers in Uganda, I compare the disbursement of a loan as cash to disbursement onto a digital account. After 8 months, women who received their microfinance loan on the digital account had 11 percent higher (US$70) business capital and 15 percent higher (US$18) profits compared to those who received their loan as cash. Impacts were greatest for women who experienced pressure to share money with others in the household at baseline.- Reproduced
Field Experiments, Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation, Household Finance: Household Saving, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth, Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination, Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development, Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance