Mobile Money and Economic Activity: Evidence from Kenya
利用肯尼亚移动代理网络扩张数据和夜间灯光强度衡量地方经济活动，发现移动货币服务提升了当地经济，且效果随时间增强，对较富裕、城市和基础设施好的地区影响更大。
This paper estimates the impact of access to mobile money services on local economic activity. The analysis combines data from the early expansion of the mobile agent network in Kenya with a local-level measure of economic performance proxied by the intensity of nighttime lights. Leveraging the variation in areas that gained access to mobile money services at different times and the high resolution of the data, the paper shows that access to mobile money services increased local economic activity and that these effects increased over time. The positive effects are more pronounced for areas that were initially more affluent, urban, and better connected to infrastructure. These results suggest that mobile money can complement, rather than just substitute for, other alternatives that enable people to connect, trade, and allocate investments within their networks.