{"title":"E-money, risk-sharing, and welfare","authors":"Francesco Carli , Burak R. Uras","doi":"10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104832","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We develop a micro-founded monetary model to inquire the role of a privately provided e-money instrument for household consumption smoothing and welfare. Different from fiat money, e-money users pay electronic transaction fees, but in turn e-money reduces their spatial separation frictions and enables risk-sharing through remittance transfers. We characterize the profit maximizing e-money transaction fees charged by a monopolist technology provider and the optimality of price regulation. Calibrating the model for the context of Kenya’s e-money product M-Pesa shows that the introduction of M-Pesa through a monopolist increases aggregate welfare by 1.0%, while regulating e-money prices and fully eliminating the monopoly power of the technology provider raises the aggregate welfare only by 0.1% beyond what is achieved through the monopolist.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48389,"journal":{"name":"European Economic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292124001612/pdfft?md5=bfcc54e1769fbc044ac0e917759afa65&pid=1-s2.0-S0014292124001612-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Economic Review","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292124001612","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We develop a micro-founded monetary model to inquire the role of a privately provided e-money instrument for household consumption smoothing and welfare. Different from fiat money, e-money users pay electronic transaction fees, but in turn e-money reduces their spatial separation frictions and enables risk-sharing through remittance transfers. We characterize the profit maximizing e-money transaction fees charged by a monopolist technology provider and the optimality of price regulation. Calibrating the model for the context of Kenya’s e-money product M-Pesa shows that the introduction of M-Pesa through a monopolist increases aggregate welfare by 1.0%, while regulating e-money prices and fully eliminating the monopoly power of the technology provider raises the aggregate welfare only by 0.1% beyond what is achieved through the monopolist.
期刊介绍:
The European Economic Review (EER) started publishing in 1969 as the first research journal specifically aiming to contribute to the development and application of economics as a science in Europe. As a broad-based professional and international journal, the EER welcomes submissions of applied and theoretical research papers in all fields of economics. The aim of the EER is to contribute to the development of the science of economics and its applications, as well as to improve communication between academic researchers, teachers and policy makers across the European continent and beyond.