The Impact and External Validity of Mobile Money Interventions in South Asia

Testing whether the impacts of mobile money on migrant households in Bangladesh replicate in a larger sample across the subcontinent.

Project Introduction

Experimental research by Lee et al. (2021), published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, found strongly positive impacts from introducing mobile money to urban migrants and their households at origin in northwest Bangladesh — including increased urban-to-rural remittances, higher consumption, reduced extreme poverty and borrowing, increased savings and productive investment, and increased outmigration for work. Because the original study was conducted in a specific context, it raised questions of external validity. This project expands the original study’s scope to test whether its results hold with a larger sample of migrant-household pairs in Bangladesh, with DIA leading the parallel work in India.

Partners

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Researchers

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Project Methodology

The study uses a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of a deliberately designed mobile financial services (MFS) training programme on household consumption, education, and health outcomes. In India, site selection was guided by a micro-econometric structural model informed by scoping exercises based on Lee et al. (2021), including extensive key informant interviews with district- and block-level government officials, development officers, and local leaders to identify high-migrant-density areas. The planned intervention is a deliberately designed MFS training programme delivered to randomly selected treatment participants.

Impact

The original study found a 30% increase in urban-to-rural remittances, translating into a 7.5% increase in consumption, alongside reduced extreme poverty, reduced borrowing, increased savings and productive investment, and increased outmigration for work by other household members. This evaluation is designed to test the generalizability of these outcomes across a larger and more diverse sample, providing insight into whether mobile money interventions can be expected to deliver similar benefits at scale across South Asia.

Documentation

This project is currently in progress, and will be updated with findings as results arise.

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