The Impact of Commitment Savings Accounts : The Case of Malawi
In order to understand the impact of facilitating access to savings accounts and to examine the importance of these barriers for formal savings, author designed a field experiment among smallholder cash crop farmers in Malawi. In partnership with a...
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2011/08/14928205/impact-commitment-savings-accounts-case-malawi http://hdl.handle.net/10986/10081 |
| Summary: | In order to understand the impact of
facilitating access to savings accounts and to examine the
importance of these barriers for formal savings, author
designed a field experiment among smallholder cash crop
farmers in Malawi. In partnership with a local microfinance
institution, author randomized offers of account-opening and
deposit assistance for formal savings accounts. In order to
test the importance of individual self-control problems or
pressure to share resources with others in the social
network, treated farmers were randomly assigned to one of
two types of savings interventions. The first group was
offered an 'ordinary' bank account with standard
features. The second group was offered the ordinary account
as well as a 'commitment' savings account. |
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