Banking the Unbanked? Evidence from Three Countries
通过在乌干达、马拉维和智利的随机实验，发现仅扩大基本银行账户的获取对平均储蓄和福利没有显著改善，但活跃用户可能有较大效果。
We experimentally test the impact of expanding access to basic bank accounts in Uganda, Malawi, and Chile. Over two years, 17, 10, and 3 percent of treatment individuals made five or more deposits, respectively. Average monthly deposits in treatment accounts were sizable among users, corresponding to the seventy-ninth, ninety-first, and ninety-sixth percentiles of baseline savings. Survey data show no discernible intention-to-treat effects on savings or any downstream outcomes, though we cannot reject large effect sizes for active users. Results suggest that policies merely focused on expanding access to basic accounts are unlikely to improve welfare noticeably on average.