Improving well-being through mobile money: a replication study in Niger

Around the world, there has been an exponential growth in cash-based programmes as part of social policies. Innovative payment mechanisms, such as mobile money, could have benefits for recipients. An experimental study suggests that the use of mobile money, Zap delivery, might improve intra-household socio-economic dynamics on Niger. Our replication study evaluates the impact of Zap delivery in contrast to more traditional delivery mechanism. We examined original author´s findings and estimated similar results about increasing household diet diversity without decreasing their durable and nondurable assets. The heterogeneity evaluation by age groups suggests that the Zap delivery had a different impact on older beneficiaries than younger ones. In addition, we evaluated the robustness, which considers multiple imputation and Lee bounds analysis; as well as a nutritional evaluation of children under 5 years using anthropometric measures.