The Effect of Savings Accounts on Interpersonal Financial Relationships: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Rural Kenya
通过随机向885户家庭提供免费银行账户，发现账户并未挤出现有财务关系，反而减少了对外出子女和兄弟姐妹的依赖，增强了对村内邻居和朋友的支持。
The welfare impact of expanding access to bank accounts depends on whether accounts crowd out pre-existing financial relationships, or whether private gains from accounts are shared within social networks. In this experiment, we provided free bank accounts to a random subset of 885 households. Across households, we document positive spillovers: treatment households become less reliant on grown children and siblings living outside their village, and become more supportive of neighbours and friends within their village. Within households, we randomised which spouse was offered an account and find no evidence of negative spillovers.