1. Our Algorithmic Overlords: How will digital financial services, and the data that flows from them, affect our daily lives? It depends. Big data, combined with the low marginal cost of extending digital services can be used to dramatically expand access to quality financial services. But they can also be used to discriminate against the poor, empower dictators, punish political enemies and limit economic mobility. In other words, algorithms and the people that write them matter.
2. Digital Trust: Obviously a key factor in the reach of mobile money is trust. IMTFI has a new synthesis of studies examining how trust in mobile money systems is built or squandered, while the Helix Institute has thoughts on trends in mobile money fraud (the most prevalent and serious of which involve people with access to the algorithms) IMTFI and Helix Institute
Week of April 4, 2016
1. Poorest of the Poor: There's new data from the Bangladesh "graduation model" evaluation that provided livestock and training to very poor women. After three years, results were strikingly positive. Now there's a 7 year follow-up that suggests those gains hold for the long-term and may even continue to increase--importantly with no evidence of negative spillovers and some evidence of positive spillovers to others in the village. Development Impact
2. Debt vs Savings: If you get an influx of cash, should you pay down debt or build up savings? It's a hard question to answer. Allison Schrager argues that paying down debt is conventional wisdom (is it?) but that saving is better than paying down low-interest, long-term debt for millennials. Of course, by rough calculation only 30% of millennials have such debt while the average American household carries $15,000+ of credit card debt. Quartz
3. Efficient Markets: Omar Al-Ubaydli and John List review the findings of field experiments on markets, finding that while there are behavioral quirks that limit market efficiency, many of those quirks disappear when participants have the chance to learn. A useful reminder when thinking about the use of nudges and the application of behavioral economics. NBER
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Week of March 28, 2016
1. Income Volatility: Churn in health insurance coverage imposes a lot of costs on individuals, administrators and providers. Dhruv Khullar illustrates howincome volatility is a major driver of churn and suggests some ideas for reducing the impact of income volatility on health insurance coverage. NYT
2. Digital Inclusion (or not): Direct digital payments to poor households can theoretically be a tool for financial inclusion, but not if the programs turn those households off. Silvia Baur and Jamie Zimmerman review risks in digital payments programs that can limit their effect on inclusion. CGAP
Week of March 14, 2016
1. Financial Diaries: Similar to the findings of the US Financial Diaries, the newly released results from the Mexican Financial Diaries report many families struggling with income volatility, even with employment opportunities. Households struggled to match income and expenses despite working an average of 7.3 different jobs per family. CFI
2. Savings: "The intriguing finding remains. Perhaps savings accounts don’t enable people to earn more, they inspire them to earn more." NextBillion
Week of March 7, 2016
1. Research Methodology: Jeffrey Mosenkis published a handy guide to debunking debunking news stories in light of Repligate, the 2016 version of Worm Wars. IPA
2. Mobile Money: In the days leading up to the recent presidential election, the Ugandan government imposed a shutdown of mobile money platforms in the country. While there was significant disruption and loss of revenue in the short-term, the long-term negative impact on trust in the system may be the true cause of worry. CGAP
Week of February 29, 2016
1. Informal Finance: Relying on friends and family for financial support can provide financial security, but it can also be a burden. Whether it helps or hurts differs by race, income, and marital status. Hispanic households feel most burdened. The Pew Charitable Trusts
2. Savings: A new saving product designed for farmers in Mali and Senegal is built around scratch cards, similar to those used to buy pre-paid phone minutes. The new product uses scratch cards to combine the convenience of mobile money with the transparency of cash. CGAP
3. Remittances: "If we can use Bitcoin to replace SWIFT during the international part of the journey, and employ the local mobile money network as our domestic transport, then we’ve really got something. Until then, associating Bitcoin so directly with cheaper remittances is perhaps missing the point." Medium
Week of February 22, 2016
1. Racial Wealth Gap: La June Montgomery Tabron, President and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, applies insights from the US Financial Diaries project to the economic realities of families of color in America, where a persistent racial wealth gap and structural impediments to equality remain. Stanford Social Innovation Review
2. Behavioral Economics: Behavioral "nudges" incorporated into policy design may produce some change but fall short of solving major issues like encouraging retirement savings among the poor. As Eduardo Porter puts it, "fancy cognitive tricks may fail to overcome the main obstacle faced by the poor: a lack of money." The New York Times
3. Cash Transfers: At a recent event, Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton touched on foreign aid, global and national inequality, and globalization. He also warned the development community of potential unintended consequences of cash transfers as the intervention grows in popularity. Center on Foreign Relations
Week of February 15, 2016
1. Financial Inclusion: FAI's Executive Director Jonathan Morduch discusses what the fight against poverty in the US can learn from the developing world and vice versa. Stanford Social Innovation Review
2. Racial Wealth Gap: "A quarter of black children will make less than 80 percent of what their parents did, meaning that even in this expanding economy with higher earnings, as adults they are not just worse off relatively, but objectively. Put simply, retaining middle class status is more difficult for black families across generations." Urban Institute
3. Consumer Protection: Customer protection initiatives like the Smart Campaign seek to protect the interests of microfinance clients. But how would customers define good and bad lending practices? A new compilation of client feedback seeks to find out. Center for Financial Inclusion
Week of February 8, 2016
1. Informal Finance: Savings clubs, money guards, and loans from family members are just a few ways many Americans are creating their own DIY financial services. Planet Money
2. Impact Evaluations: David Evans' reflections on zero effect results in educational interventions are a nice reminder of the lessons we can learn from the microcredit impact evaluations. The World Bank - Development Impact
3. Retirement Savings: Is the case against expanding social security simply the result of a math error? The Los Angeles Times
Week of February 1, 2016
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1. Income Volatility: The Aspen Institute's Ida Rademacher explores policy solutions to providing families long-term financial security, Rachel Schneider and Nancy Castillo of CFSI highlight emerging fintech products, and Dave Prosser, SVP at Freedom First Credit Union, discusses responsible underwriting for SSIR's ongoing blog and webinar series. Stanford Social Innovation Review
2. Microfinance: Chris Dunford reviews microfinance's conventional theory of change and why the industry is in need of rebranding to showcase poverty alleviation as an achievement, not a consolation prize. NextBillion
