TY  - JOUR
AU  - Schaner, Simone
TI  - The Persistent Power of Behavioral Change: Long-Run Impacts of Temporary Savings Subsidies for the Poor
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 22534
PY  - 2016
Y2  - August 2016
DO  - 10.3386/w22534
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22534
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22534.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Simone G. Schaner
Department of Economics and
 Center for Economic and Social Research
University of Southern California
635 Downey Way
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Tel: 213-821-6023
Fax: 213.821.2716
E-Mail: schaner@usc.edu
AB  - I use a field experiment in rural Kenya to study how temporary incentives to save impact long-run economic outcomes. Study participants randomly selected to receive large temporary interest rates on an individual bank account had significantly more income and assets 2.5 years after the interest rates expired. These changes are much larger than the short-run impacts on experimental bank account use and almost entirely driven by growth in entrepreneurship. Temporary interest rates directed to joint bank accounts had no detectable long-run impacts on entrepreneurship or income, but increased investment in household public goods and spousal consensus over finances.
ER  -