Financial Inclusion: Drivers and Real Effects

Thursday, March 22, 2018
IMF Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

March 22, 2018

The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars conducting research on different aspects of financial inclusion to discuss their findings on the drivers and effects of access to and use of financial services. The program is structured in three sessions (on Access to and use of bank accounts; Access to and use of credit; and Access to and use of payment services) including 9 papers with a balanced mix of different approaches. The conference will close with a panel discussion on policies that can promote financial inclusion and ensure that greater access to financial services has positive economic effects without endangering financial stability.

7:45 - 8:35 am Breakfast & Registration 

8:35 - 8:45 am Opening Remarks
Maurice Obstfeld, International Monetary Fund
8:45 - 10:45 am SESSION 1 - ACCESS TO AND USE OF CREDIT
Chair: Martin Cihak, International Monetary Fund
Do Credit Constraints Limit Entrepreneurship: Heterogeneity in the Returns to Microfinance (Abhijit Banerjee, Emily Breza, Esther Duflo, and Cynthia Kinnan)
Discussant: Bilal Zia, World Bank
To Borrow or Not to Borrow: Religious Norms and the Elasticity of Demand for Credit (Dean Karlan, Adam Osman, and Nour Shammout)
Discussant: David McKenzie, World Bank
Endowment Effects and Usage of Financial Products: Evidence from Malawi (Xavier Gine, and Jessica Goldberg)
Discussant: Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, International Monetary Fund
10:45 - 11:15 am Coffee Break

11:15 - 1:15 pm SESSION 2 - ACCESS TO AND USE OF BANK ACCOUNTS
Chair: Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, International Monetary Fund
Banking the Unbanked: What do 225 Million New Bank Accounts Reveal about Financial Access? (Sumit Agarwal, Shashwat Alok, Pulak Ghosh, Soumya Ghosh, Tomasz Piskorski, and Amit Seru)
Discussant: Rohini Pande, Harvard Kennedy School
Bank-Branch Supply, Financial Inclusion and Wealth Accumulation (Claire Célérier, and Adrien Matray)
Discussant: Jacopo Ponticelli, Northwestern University
Financial Access Under the Microscope (Sumit Agarwal, Thomas Kigabo, Camelia Minoiu, Andrea Presbitero, and Andre Silva)
Discussant: Miriam Bruhn, World Bank
1:15 - 2:30 pm Lunch
2:30 - 4:30 pm SESSION 3 – ACCESS TO AND USE OF PAYMENT SERVICES
Chair: Thorsten Beck, Cass Business School
When is Technology Empowering? Evidence from Electronic Wage Payments in Bangladesh (Emily Breza, Leora Klapper, and Martin Kanz)
Discussant: Simone Schaner, University of Southern California
Payment Technology Adoption by SMEs: Experimental Evidence from Kenya's Mobile Money (Patricio Dalton, Haki Pamuk, Dan van Soest, Ravindra Ramrattan, and Burak Uras)
Discussant: Jeremy Tobacman, University of Delaware
High Hopes: Experimental Evidence on Saving and the Transition to High School in Kenya (Billy Jack)
Discussant: Mario Macis, Johns Hopkins University
4:30 - 4:45 pm Coffee Break 

4:45 - 6:00 pm SESSION 4 - POLICY PANEL ON FINANCIAL INCLUSION: ARE THERE TRADEOFFS WITH FINANCIAL STABILITY?
Moderator: Rachel Glennerster, DFID and J-PAL
Speakers:
Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Director of Research, World Bank
Patrick Njoroge, Governor, Central Bank of Kenya
Rohini Pande, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Ratna Sahay, Deputy Director, International Monetary Fund
6:00 - 7:30 pm Cocktail Reception 

 *Sessions 1 – 3 will include 20 minutes for presenters, 10 for discussants and 10 for Q&A.