Essays on financial, transportation and savings investment technologies

This thesis investigates the impact and adoption of three types of technologies mobile money, a leading financial technology in Kenya, the colonial railway, an important transportation technology in Nigeria, and two prevalent savings investment technologies for the provision of retirement income: inter-generational transfers (pay-as- you-go systems) and capital markets investments. Access to mobile money services is shown to have a significant impact on economic activity. Areas with access to mobile money services grow faster, especially when they are initially richer, urban, and connected to roads and to banks. The heterogeneity of the the short- and long-run effects of railroads on individual and local development in Nigeria is found to be substantial. Unlike in areas further away from the coast, the railway had no impact in areas that had access to ports of export and those areas barely adopted the railway as it did not reduce their shipping costs. The cross-country heterogeneity in the adoption of savings investment technologies is shown to be accounted for by rational, welfare maximizing decisions based on distinct underlying economic characteristics.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Yokossi, Tite

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Esther Duflo and Benjamin Olken.

• Economics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109006

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/109006