Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>I use a field experiment in rural Kenya to study how temporary incentives to save impact long run economic outcomes. Study participants randomly selected to receive large temporary interest rates on an individual bank account had significantly more income and assets 2.5 years after the interest rates expired. These changes are much larger than the short-run impacts on experimental bank account use and almost entirely driven by growth in entrepreneurship. Temporary interest rates directed to joint bank accounts had no detectable long-run impacts on entrepreneurship or income, but increased investment in household public goods and spousal consensus over finances.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links http://www.nber.org/papers/w22534.pdf Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question Does intrahousehold heterogeneity in discount factors lead to inefficient strategic savings behavior? Sample Trial population and sample selection The study was conducted in the town of Busia in Western Province, Kenya with communities surrounding the Family Bank in Busia. Communities around the town’s 19 primary schools were chosen so that the school could serve as a meeting place. Trained field officers issued meeting invitations to married couples where (i) neither spouse had an account with Family Bank, but at least one spouse was potentially interested in opening one; and (ii) both spouses had national ID cards and were able to attend the meeting. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description The intervention explored the effect of how different interest rates incentivised bank account use, increased income and entrepreneurship. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Survey Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Account opening; account savings.</p> Results <p>Participants who received large temporary interest rates on an individual bank account had greater income and assets 2.5 years after the high interest rates ended.</p> Intervention costs Cost benefit ratio Reference Schaner, S. (2016). 'The Persistent Power of Behavioral Change: Long-Run Impacts of Temporary Savings Subsidies for the Poor'. National Bureau of Economic Research. Citation for use in academic references
