[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-113164-en":3,"doc-seo-113164-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},113164,3848291630094,"Emma Wilson","https://eur-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45",8,"Research & Report","Mobile Money and Economic Activity: Evidence from Kenya","This paper estimates the impact of access to mobile money services on local economic activity in Kenya. Using early expansion of the mobile agent network, the study links varying adoption timing across areas to local economic performance proxied by nighttime lights intensity. Results show that mobile money access raises local activity, with effects strengthening over time. Benefits are larger for areas initially more affluent, urban, and better connected to infrastructure, suggesting mobile money complements broader network-based opportunities for connecting, trading, and investing.","Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Pub lic Disclosure Authorized  \nThe World Bank Economic Review, 36(3), 2022, 734–756  \n[https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhac007](https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhac007)  \nArticle  \nMobile Money and Economic Activity: Evidence from Kenya􀀂  \nRaissa Fabregas  and Tite Yokossi  \nAbstract  \nThis 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.  \nJEL classification: G29, O16, O17, O47  \nKeywords: mobile money, night lights, financial inclusion, Kenya  \n1. Introduction  \nThe rapid expansion of digital technologies worldwide has enabled millions of people in developing and emerging markets to access a range of financial services for the first time. Mobile money services—which allow people to store and transfer money through a mobile phone—have played a central role in driving this financial inclusion, with over 866 million registered accounts in 90 countries (GSMA 2019) . By reducing transaction costs, improving transparency, providing a saving technology, and allowing individuals to share risk, mobile money has been heralded as a leading financial innovation with the potential to improve efficiency and spur economic growth.  \nThis paper estimates the effects of access to Kenya’s M-PESA on local economic activity in the years following its launch. M-PESA, one of the most successful mobile money services globally, enables individuals to transfer money through short messaging services (SMS) . Existing literature has documented positive effects of mobile money in mitigating risk (Jack, Ray, and Suri 2013; Jack and Suri 2014;  \n􀀂 Raissa Fabregas (corresponding author) is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA; heremail address is [rfabregas@utexas.edu. Tite Yokossi](rfabregas@utexas.edu. Tite Yokossi) is a data scientist at QuantCo, Cologne, Germany; his email address [is tite.yokossi@gmail.com. Tite acknowledges financial assistance from the MIT Department of Economics](is tite.yokossi@gmail.com. Tite acknowledges financial assistance from the MIT Department of Economics), where he was affiliated at the time of this study. The authors thank Abhijit Banerjee, Stacy Carlson, Esther Duflo, John Firth, Gabriel Kreindler, Ernest Liu, Matthew Lowe, Benjamin Marx, Benjamin Olken, Tavneet Suri, MIT Development Lunch participants, and the African School of Economics SIER conference participants for comments and discussions. Special thanks to Tavneet Suri for helping with access to the mobile money network expansion data. Felipe Lima provided excellent research assistance. A supplementary online appendix is available with this article at The World Bank Economic Review website.  \n© The Author(s) 2022 . Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK.  \nAll rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [journals.permissions@oup.com](journals.permissions@oup.com)  \nDownloaded from [https://academic.oup.com/wber/article/36/3/734/6587137 by Sectoral Library Rm MC-C3-220 user on](https://academic.oup.com/wber/article/36/3/734/6587137 by Sectoral Library Rm MC-C3-220 user on) 10 December 2023  \nRiley 2018), increasin","cbCaimnT6TbQl9RS","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimnT6TbQl9RS","pdf",602985,1,23,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Mobile money and financial inclusion\n## Research question and approach\n## Measuring local economic activity with nighttime lights","[{\"question\":\"What does the paper study about mobile money in Kenya?\",\"answer\":\"The paper estimates how access to Kenya’s mobile money services affects local economic activity after launch, focusing on M-PESA.\"},{\"question\":\"How is local economic activity measured in the study?\",\"answer\":\"Local activity is proxied using the intensity of nighttime lights from satellite imagery, using a grid of pixel cells as the main unit of analysis.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the paper find about where and when mobile money effects occur?\",\"answer\":\"Access to mobile money increases local economic activity, and the positive impacts grow over time, especially in initially more affluent, urban, and better-connected 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