数字时代的贫困与迁移：来自孟加拉国移动银行的实验证据

中文摘要

快速城市化正在重塑经济格局并加剧空间不平等。在孟加拉国，我们以实验方式向极为贫困的农村家庭及其已迁移至城市的家庭成员引入移动银行，检验移动技术能否通过使传统汇款方式现代化来减少不平等。一年后，对移动银行活跃用户而言，城市向农村的汇款增加了基线均值的26%。农村消费增长了7.5%，极端贫困有所下降。农村家庭借贷减少、储蓄增加、迁出了更多家庭成员，并在青黄不接的季节消费更多。城市移民的贫困有所减轻、储蓄更多，但也承担了成本，报告健康状况恶化。

Abstract

Rapid urbanization is reshaping economies and intensifying spatial inequalities. In Bangladesh, we experimentally introduced mobile banking to very poor rural households and family members who had migrated to the city, testing whether mobile technology can reduce inequality by modernizing traditional ways to transfer money. One year later, for active mobile banking users, urban-to-rural remittances increased by 26 percent of the baseline mean. Rural consumption increased by 7.5 percent, and extreme poverty fell. Rural households borrowed less, saved more, sent additional migrants, and consumed more in the lean season. Urban migrants experienced less poverty and saved more but bore costs, reporting worse health.