IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/chinae/v28y2020i3p90-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mobile Payment and Informal Business: Evidence from China's Household Panel Data

Author

Listed:
  • Xue Wang

Abstract

This paper uses household panel data to explore the impact of mobile payments on China's household business activity. Using a difference‐in‐difference fixed effect specification, I find that mobile payment users are more likely to operate small‐scale and self‐employed informal businesses. The impact of using mobile payment primarily derives from the transition of agricultural families to business owners and the development of informal businesses. The paper illustrates an associated increase in employment and income for family members, with more pronounced effects on low‐income and rural households. It also provides prima facie evidence of the increase in fund transfers, which is important for risk sharing that informal businesses may encounter.

Suggested Citation

  • Xue Wang, 2020. "Mobile Payment and Informal Business: Evidence from China's Household Panel Data," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(3), pages 90-115, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:28:y:2020:i:3:p:90-115
    DOI: 10.1111/cwe.12334
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12334
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/cwe.12334?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peng Jia & Yang Du & Meiyan Wang, 2017. "Rural Labor Migration and Poverty Reduction in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 25(6), pages 45-64, November.
    2. Dean Karlan & Robert Osei & Isaac Osei-Akoto & Christopher Udry, 2014. "Agricultural Decisions after Relaxing Credit and Risk Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 597-652.
    3. Rafael La Porta & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Informality and Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 109-126, Summer.
    4. Colin C. Williams & Alvaro Martinez–Perez & Abbi M. Kedir, 2017. "Informal Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies: The Impacts of Starting up Unregistered on firm Performance," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(5), pages 773-799, September.
    5. William Jack & Adam Ray & Tavneet Suri, 2013. "Transaction Networks: Evidence from Mobile Money in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 356-361, May.
    6. Jianguo Xu, 2017. "China's Internet Finance: A Critical Review," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 25(4), pages 78-92, July.
    7. Munyegera, Ggombe Kasim & Matsumoto, Tomoya, 2016. "Mobile Money, Remittances, and Household Welfare: Panel Evidence from Rural Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 127-137.
    8. Li Gan & Zhichao Yin & Nan Jia & Shu Xu & Shuang Ma & Lu Zheng, 2014. "Data you need to know about China," Springer Books, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-642-38151-5, November.
    9. Ana Cristina O. Siqueira & Justin W. Webb & Garry D. Bruton, 2016. "Informal Entrepreneurship and Industry Conditions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 40(1), pages 177-200, January.
    10. Miriam Bruhn & Inessa Love, 2014. "The Real Impact of Improved Access to Finance: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(3), pages 1347-1376, June.
    11. David M. Drukker, 2016. "A generalized regression-adjustment estimator for average treatment effects from panel data," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 16(4), pages 826-836, December.
    12. Jennifer T. Lai & Isabel K. M. Yan & Xingjian Yi & Hao Zhang, 2020. "Digital Financial Inclusion and Consumption Smoothing in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(1), pages 64-93, January.
    13. Pamela Jakiela & Owen Ozier, 2016. "Does Africa Need a Rotten Kin Theorem? Experimental Evidence from Village Economies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(1), pages 231-268.
    14. Xun Zhang & Ying Tan & Zonghui Hu & Chen Wang & Guanghua Wan, 2020. "The Trickle‐down Effect of Fintech Development: From the Perspective of Urbanization," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(1), pages 23-40, January.
    15. Janine Aron, 2018. "Mobile Money and the Economy: A Review of the Evidence," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 33(2), pages 135-188.
    16. William Jack & Tavneet Suri, 2014. "Risk Sharing and Transactions Costs: Evidence from Kenya's Mobile Money Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(1), pages 183-223, January.
    17. Beck, Thorsten & Pamuk, Haki & Ramrattan, Ravindra & Uras, Burak R., 2018. "Payment instruments, finance and development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 162-186.
    18. Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Leora Klapper, 2013. "Measuring Financial Inclusion: Explaining Variation in Use of Financial Services across and within Countries," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(1 (Spring), pages 279-340.
    19. Riley, Emma, 2018. "Mobile money and risk sharing against village shocks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 43-58.
    20. Di Falco, Salvatore & Bulte, Erwin, 2013. "The Impact of Kinship Networks on the Adoption of Risk-Mitigating Strategies in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 100-110.
    21. Paraskevi Koufopoulou & Colin C. Williams & Athanassios Vozikis & Kyriakos Souliotis, 2019. "Shadow Economy: Definitions, terms & theoretical considerations," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 9(5), pages 1-3.
    22. Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Leora Klapper, 2013. "Measuring Financial Inclusion: Explaining Variation in Use of Financial Services across and within Countries," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 279-340.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qing Wang & Wenjing Xu & Yanghua Huang & Jidong Yang, 2022. "The Effect of Fast Internet on Employment: Evidence from a Large Broadband Expansion Program in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(3), pages 100-134, May.
    2. Yanna He & Muzaffarjon Ahunov, 2022. "Financial Literacy: The Case of China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(5), pages 75-101, September.
    3. Boou Chen & Chunkai Zhao, 2021. "Poverty reduction in rural China: Does the digital finance matter?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-27, December.
    4. Jianmei Zhao & Lele Zhao, 2022. "Mobile payment adoption and the decline in China’s household savings rate," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(5), pages 2513-2537, November.
    5. Yuhua Li & Xiheng Gong & Jingyi Zhang & Ziwei Xiang & Chengjun Liao, 2022. "The Impact of Mobile Payment on Household Poverty Vulnerability: A Study Based on CHFS2017 in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-20, October.
    6. Panetta, Ida Claudia & Leo, Sabrina & Delle Foglie, Andrea, 2023. "The development of digital payments – Past, present, and future – From the literature," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    7. Zhao, Chunkai & Wu, Yaqian & Guo, Jianhao, 2022. "Mobile payment and Chinese rural household consumption," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    8. Hongyun Zheng & Wanglin Ma, 2022. "Scan the QR Code of Happiness: Can Mobile Payment Adoption Make People Happier?," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 2299-2310, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luc Jacolin & Joseph Keneck Massil & Alphonse Noah, 2021. "Informal sector and mobile financial services in emerging and developing countries: Does financial innovation matter?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(9), pages 2703-2737, September.
    2. Yiping Huang & Xue Wang & Xun Wang, 2020. "Mobile Payment in China: Practice and Its Effects," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 19(3), pages 1-18, Fall.
    3. Luc Jacolin & Massil Keneck & Alphonse Noah, 2019. "Informal Sector and Mobile Financial Services in Developing Countries: Does Financial Innovation Matter?," Working papers 721, Banque de France.
    4. Singh, Nirvikar, 2018. "Financial Inclusion: Concepts, Issues and Policies for India," MPRA Paper 91047, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Gregory Mvogo & Christèle Gladisse Awounang Djouaka, 2022. "Effet du mobile money sur la résilience des ménages exerçant des activités génératrices de revenus au Cameroun," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(4), pages 459-471, December.
    6. Apeti, Ablam Estel & Edoh, Eyah Denise, 2023. "Tax revenue and mobile money in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    7. Ky, Serge Stéphane & Rugemintwari, Clovis & Sauviat, Alain, 2021. "Friends or Foes? Mobile money interaction with formal and informal finance," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1).
    8. Thomas Eekhout & Jean‐Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous, 2023. "Entrepreneurs' mobile phone appropriation and technical efficiency of informal firms in Dakar (Senegal)," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 1429-1455, August.
    9. James Atta Peprah & Clement Oteng & Joshua Sebu, 2020. "Mobile Money, Output and Welfare Among Smallholder Farmers in Ghana," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, June.
    10. Pengpeng Yue & Aslihan Gizem Korkmaz & Zhichao Yin & Haigang Zhou, 2022. "The rise of digital finance: Financial inclusion or debt trap," Papers 2201.09221, arXiv.org.
    11. N'dri, Lasme Mathieu & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2020. "Financial inclusion, mobile money, and individual welfare: The case of Burkina Faso," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    12. Gallego-Losada, María-Jesús & Montero-Navarro, Antonio & García-Abajo, Elisa & Gallego-Losada, Rocío, 2023. "Digital financial inclusion. Visualizing the academic literature," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    13. Grohmann, Antonia & Klühs, Theres & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2018. "Does financial literacy improve financial inclusion? Cross country evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 84-96.
    14. Ablam Estel Apeti & Jean-Louis Combes & Eyah Denise Edoh, 2023. "Entrepreneurship in developing countries: can mobile money play a role?," Working Papers hal-04081304, HAL.
    15. Batista, Catia & Vicente, Pedro C., 2020. "Improving access to savings through mobile money: Experimental evidence from African smallholder farmers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    16. Ahmad Hassan Ahmad & Christopher Green & Fei Jiang, 2020. "Mobile Money, Financial Inclusion And Development: A Review With Reference To African Experience," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 753-792, September.
    17. Catia Batista & Pedro C. Vicente, 2018. "Is mobile money changing rural Africa? Evidence from a field experiment," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp1805, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    18. Miyajima, Ken, 2022. "Mobile phone ownership and welfare: Evidence from South Africa’s household survey," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    19. Yang, Bo & Ma, Fang & Deng, Weihua & Pi, Yang, 2022. "Digital inclusive finance and rural household subsistence consumption in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 627-642.
    20. Anandi Mani & Emma Riley, 2019. "Social networks, role models, peer effects, and aspirations," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-120, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:28:y:2020:i:3:p:90-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwepacn.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.