We develop a micro-founded general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents and three dimensions of financial inclusion: access (determined by a participation cost), depth (determined by a borrowing constraint), and intermediation efficiency (determined by a monitoring cost). We find that the...

We experimentally study the impact of substantially larger enterprise loans, in collaboration with an Egyptian lender. Larger loans generate small average impacts, but machine learning using psychometric data reveals dramatic heterogeneity. Top-performers (i.e., those with the highest predicted...

We propose a simple cross-sectional technique to extract daily factors from economic news released at different times and frequencies. Our approach can effectively handle the large number of different announcements that are relevant for tracking current economic conditions. We apply the...

This paper develops a procedure for uncovering the common cyclical factors that drive a mix of stationary and nonstationary variables. The method does not require knowing which variables are nonstationary or the nature of the nonstationarity. An application to the FRED-MD macroeconomic dataset...

One of the biggest challenges that countries face today is the very unequal distributions of opportunities, resources, income and wealth across people. Inclusive prosperity - whereby many people from different backgrounds can benefit from economic growth, new technologies, and the fruits of...

The cost of financial intermediation has declined in recent years thanks to technological progress and increased competition. I document this fact and I analyze two features of new financial technologies that have stirred controversy: returns to scale, and the use of big data and machine...

In developing economies, mobile-linked services have the potential to significantly reduce transaction costs and provide a truly new conduit that could be used to facilitate the flow of savings into banks. We test this premise by introducing a product that permits Sri Lankan households to...

This paper provides evidence on the difficulty of expanding access to credit through large institutions. We use detailed observational data and a large-scale countrywide experiment to examine a large bank's experience with a credit card that accounted for approximately 15% of all first-time...

We experimentally test the impact of expanding access to basic bank accounts in Uganda, Malawi, and Chile. Over two years, 17 percent, 10 percent, and 3 percent of treatment individuals made five or more deposits, respectively. Average monthly deposits for them were at the 79th, 91st, and 96th...

Web3 and DeFi are widely advocated as innovations for greater financial inclusion and democratization. We assemble the most comprehensive dataset to date on the largest Web3 ecosystem and use large-scale computing to conduct an initial investigation. We describe Ethereum's network structure,...