Financial Technology Adoption: Network Externalities of Cashless Payments in Mexico.

Do coordination failures constrain financial technology adoption? Exploiting the Mexican government's rollout of 1 million debit cards to poor households from 2009 to 2012, I examine responses on both sides of the market and find important spillovers and distributional impacts. On the supply side, s...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:American Economic Review Vol. 114; no. 11; pp. 3469 - 3513
Autor principal: Higgins, Sean
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: American Economic Association Nov2024
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Do coordination failures constrain financial technology adoption? Exploiting the Mexican government's rollout of 1 million debit cards to poor households from 2009 to 2012, I examine responses on both sides of the market and find important spillovers and distributional impacts. On the supply side, small retail firms adopted point-of-sale terminals to accept card payments. On the demand side, this led to a 21 percent increase in other consumers' card adoption. The supply-side technology adoption response had positive effects on both richer consumers and small retail firms: richer consumers shifted 13 percent of their supermarket consumption to small retailers, whose sales and profits increased. (JEL E42, L25, L81, O14, O33)