Does Mobile Money Adoption Improve Dietary Quality? Assessing Household and Individual Level Impacts in Cameroon

ABSTRACT Mobile money—a digital financial service—has proliferated in many developing countries. Owing to its ability to reduce transaction costs and allow even the poor to be financially included, it has been widely adopted. While a growing body of literature has examined its welfare effects, its effects on diet quality of households and individuals are not yet well understood. Here, we evaluate the implications of mobile money on household and women's diets. We also explore several mechanisms. Using cross‐sectional data from rural Cameroon, we employ instrumental variable methods to control for potential endogeneity. Our results suggest that mobile money is positively associated with household diet quality but negatively associated with women's diet quality. The results further show that mobile money operates through increasing the likelihood of engaging in off‐farm employment and increased agricultural commercialization. These results imply that while mobile money could be promoted for improved household diet quality, it should be cautiously done owing to its negative associations with women's diets. In a broader sense, the results suggest that studies should look beyond the household and consider the implications on individuals, especially women who are usually more vulnerable and marginalized.