that in the first week after the transfer, people who received cash spent an average of MK 15,150 across all categories. Those who were paid by direct deposit spent MK 111 more, a difference that is neither economically nor statistically significant. The savings default increased spending on food by MK 744, or 15 percent of spending by the cash transfer group. Spending in other categories fell by small amounts.

Recall that the maintained null hypothesis is that savings defaults reduce spending. Instead, we can rule out reductions in total spending of more than MK 2,095, which is 8.4 percent of the total transfer, 13.8 percent of spending in the same time period by the cash transfer group, or 0.16 standard deviations (relative to spending by the cash transfer recipients). Figure 3 illustrates the magnitude of the effect of the savings default on categories of spending using standard deviation as a unit. The bars correspond to the coefficients reported in Table 6, divided by the standard deviation in the cash transfer group. Whiskers indicate the 95 percent confidence interval.

One can also compare the magnitude of the effect to that found in other studies of savings defaults. Thaler & Benartzi (2004) report savings rates (contributions to retirement accounts as a percent of wages) but not expenditures. But two more recent papers measure expenditures in ways that are comparable to our outcomes. Blumenstock, Callen & Ghani (2015) measure expenditures six to eight months after Afghani employees are switched to mobile wage payments and find that total expenditures _increase_ by 27.8 percent of the control group mean (not statistically significant), and food expenditures increase by 42.1 percent (significant at the 5 percent level). Both of these increases are outside our confidence interval and in the opposite direction of our hypothesis. Because they measure outcomes after workers have adjusted to a new payment system, they can however be interpreted as tentative evidence of positive welfare impacts of mobile payments. Somville & Vandewalle (2015) reward Indian households either in cash or directly into basic savings accounts for answering detailed weekly surveys. Like us, they anticipate that savings defaults may reduce short term spending. They find that the savings default decreases spending on food and non-durables by 11.6 percent of spending in the cash payment group. We find that spending on food actually increases in the week following the transfer, and can rule out reductions of more than 2.2 percent of the cash group mean for food spending.<sup>10</sup> If cash transfer recipients purchase durable goods as an alternative to saving in the bank or keeping cash at home, then changes in total expenditures might understate the effect of the savings default. However, we see no evidence of differential spending on durable goods.

> 10Our confidence interval for non-durables is wider. We can rule out reductions of more than 29.4 percent of spending among the cash group in this category. Somville & Vandewalle (2015) do not report expenditures separately for food and non-food items, but in our sample, expenditures on food is approximately twice as those on non-durables.

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