Abstract. Rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa are typically underserved by financial services. Mobile money brings a substantial reduction in the transaction costs of remittances. We follow the introduc...

How does emigration of highly educated citizens of low-income countries to high-income countries affect the economies of the origin countries? The direct effect is “brain drain”—a decrease in the coun...

This week we featured research on industrial policy, brain drain, climate conflict, and more...

Abstract. Rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa are typically underserved by financial services. Mobile money brings a substantial reduction in the transaction costs of remittances. We follow the introduction of mobile money for the first time in rural villages of Mozambique using a randomized field experiment. We find that mobile money increased migration out of these villages, where we observe lower agricultural activity and investment. At the same time, remittances received and welfare of rural households increased, particularly when facing georeferenced village-level floods and household-level idiosyncratic shocks. Our work suggests that mobile money can accelerate urbanization and structural change in sub-Saharan Africa.