The social meaning of mobile money: Earmarking reduces the willingness to spend in migrant households
研究发现，在孟加拉国农村，移动货币因来自外出务工亲属的汇款而被指定用途，导致家庭消费意愿比现金低24%至31%，与通常的数字支付促进消费的结论相反。
Behavioral household finance shows that people are often more willing to spend when using less tangible forms of money like debit cards or digital payments than when spending in cash. We show that this “payment effect” cannot be generalized to mobile money. We surveyed families in rural Northwest Bangladesh, where mobile money is mainly received from relatives working in factories. The surveys were embedded within an experiment that allows us to control for the relationships between senders and receivers of mobile money. The finding suggests that the source of funds matters, and mobile money is earmarked for particular purposes and thus less fungible than cash. In contrast to the expectation of greater spending, the willingness to spend in the rural sample was lower by 24 to 31 percent. In urban areas, where the sample does not receive remittances on net, there are no payment effects associated with mobile money.