Transaction Networks: Evidence from Mobile Money in Kenya

摘要

There is strong evidence that monetary transfers within networks of family members and friends are central to household risk sharing strategies and potentially to informal credit systems as well. In recent years, mobile money services that allow individuals to transfer purchasing power via short messaging service (SMS) have captured the attention of researchers, in part because they have the potential to revolutionize such transfers in developing countries where financial infrastructure and services are broadly lacking. The growth in these services in parts of the developing world has been remarkable, especially in Kenya, where at least 70 percent of households now have access to M-PESA, the country's largest mobile money product, only five years after its launch.1 Transferring mobile money credits is convenient and cheap,2 and high levels of liquidity are provided by an infrastructure of roughly 35,000 "agents"—shopkeepers, gas stations, banks, and other institutions—who exchange credits for cash.3 Mobile money can be used to buy goods and pay bills, but the vast majority of transactions are within personal networks of family members and friends.