This paper investigates the willingness and barriers to adoption of mobile money merchant accounts by the informal businesses in Burkina Faso. We use business survey data from a quasi-experimental opening of mobile money merchant accounts that we conducted in March 2021. Our data enable us to...

This paper examines whether mobile money adoption can induce informal firms to formalize, an aspect that has been overlooked in the empirical literature. Despite several regulatory reforms such as simplifying tax systems and reducing the costs and time needed to register a business, informality...

Mobile money, a technology-driven innovation in financial services, has profoundly penetrated the financial landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa, including banks. Yet, besides anecdotal evidence, little is known about whether mobile money adoption enhances or worsens bank performance. Combining...

Access to and usage of formal financial services are important determinants of financial inclusion and yet, informal mechanisms still dominate the financial system in developing countries. In this context, the purpose of our paper is to investigate how the growing effort to harness mobile money...

We investigate whether the use of mobile money can help individuals build savings to face predictable and unpredictable life events. Studying the case of Burkina Faso, we use hand-collected data from individual responses to a survey we designed and conducted between May and June 2014. Our main...

We investigate how bank charter value affects risk for a sample of OECD banks by using standalone and systemic risk measures before, during, and after the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Prior to the crisis, bank charter value is positively associated with risk-taking and systemic risk for...

This paper investigates the relationship between financial development and income inequality by using a broad range of loan categories as proxies for financial development. Our unique data set allows us to identify loans to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). It also allows us to...