Marketing

Biology

Percentile

Statistics

Financial services

Downstream (manufacturing)

Ninth

Upstream (networking)

Economics

Market economy

Computer science

Acoustics

Payment

Business

Computer network

Paleontology

Physics

Test (biology)

Bank account

Mathematics

Political science

Demographic economics

Unbanked

Welfare

Finance

Baseline (sea)

Financial inclusion

American Economic Journal Applied Economics

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. (JEL D14, G21, O12, O16)

Banking the Unbanked? Evidence from Three Countries