Remitting Against Poverty

Upward mobility for poor, rural workers often involves migrating to cities, but sending money home can be costly and unreliable. Through an RCT, we introduced mobile banking to migrant-household pairs from rural Bangladesh. One year later, use of the digital financial technology had increased urban-to-rural remittances, decreased rural poverty, and improved conditions in the lean season. Eight years later, treated households had acquired 33 percent more productive assets by value. The treatment and control groups were using mobile money to comparable extents by then, and treatment effects on rural household consumption, income, poverty, and financial outcomes were no longer detectable.