Poverty and Migration in the Digital Age: Experimental Evidence on Mobile Banking in Bangladesh
通过在孟加拉国对极贫困农村家庭及其城市迁移家庭成员进行移动银行实验，发现移动技术能通过现代化传统汇款方式减少不平等，一年后活跃用户城乡汇款增加26%，农村消费增长7.5%，极端贫困下降。
Rapid urbanization is reshaping economies and intensifying spatial inequalities. In Bangladesh, we experimentally introduced mobile banking to very poor rural households and family members who had migrated to the city, testing whether mobile technology can reduce inequality by modernizing traditional ways to transfer money. One year later, for active mobile banking users, urban-to-rural remittances increased by 26 percent of the baseline mean. Rural consumption increased by 7.5 percent, and extreme poverty fell. Rural households borrowed less, saved more, sent additional migrants, and consumed more in the lean season. Urban migrants experienced less poverty and saved more but bore costs, reporting worse health.