Credit card debt is increasingly common among poor and inexperienced borrowers – thus de facto a financial inclusion product. However, it remains relatively under-studied. We use detailed card level data and a product that accounted for 15% of all first-time formal loans in Mexico and show...

We study how consumers allocate debt across credit cards they already hold using new data on credit card activity for a representative sample of consumers with two homogeneous cards in Mexico. We find that relative prices are a very weak predictor of the allocation of debt, purchases, and...

We study the bancarization of marginal borrowers using credit cards and document that this process is difficult: default risk is substantial, returns heterogeneous, and account closings common. We also take advantage of a randomized control trial that varied interest rates and minimum payments...

Despite the importance of deposit financing for lending, banks in developing countries struggle to attract deposits. In a randomized experiment across 110 bank branches throughout Mexico, a lottery incentive based on net monthly deposits caused a 40% increase in the number of accounts opened and...

We measure the effect of a large nationwide tax reform on sugar added drinks and caloric-dense food introduced in Mexico in 2014. Using scanner data containing weekly purchases of 47,973 barcodes by 8,130 households and an RD design, we find that calories purchased from taxed drinks and taxed...