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>Does limited access to formal savings services impede business growth in poor countries? To shed light on this question, we randomized access to noninterest-bearing bank accounts among two types of self-employed individuals in rural Kenya: market vendors (who are mostly women) and men working as bicycle taxi drivers. Despite large withdrawal fees, a substantial share of market women used the accounts, were able to save more, and increased their productive investment and private expenditures. We see no impact for bicycle taxi drivers. These results imply significant barriers to savings and investment for market women in our study context.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/app.5.1.163 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 limited access to formal savings services impede business growth in poor countries? Sample Trial population and sample selection Market vendors and bicycle drivers, including 262 female vendors, 34 male vendors, and 92 male bicycle drivers. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description This paper explores the impact of giving market vendors and bicycle taxi drivers in rural Kenya the opportunity to open a savings account at no cost to themselves. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Background survey of baseline characteristics of participants, administrative data from the village bank, tests of time and risk preference, a cognitive test, and data from the business' logbooks. Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Savings indicators = Average daily bank savings, active bank usage, animal savings, ROSCA contributions;<br /> Business impact indicators= total hours worked, business investment, business revenues;<br /> Expenditure indicators= daily food expenditure, daily private expenditure, net transfers outside of household, net transfers to spouse</p> Results <p>Increasing access to accounts increased savings, business related investments, and expenditure levels among female micro-entrepreneurs, but not among males.</p> Intervention costs At the time of the study, opening an account at the village bank cost 450 Ksh (US $6.40). Cost benefit ratio Reference Dupas, P., Robinson, J. (2013). 'Savings Constraints and Microenterprise Development: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya'. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. . Citation for use in academic references
