MOBILE WALLETS AND CONSUMER SPENDING IN SINGAPORE: AGARWAL et al. REVISITED

Agarwal et al. (2019). Mobile wallet and entrepreneurial growth. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109, 48-53 analyze the impact of the introduction of quick response (QR) codes for mobile payments in Singapore. They find that this not only resulted in a significant increase in the use of mobile wallets, but that there was also a positive spillover effect on debit and credit card payments - in particular at small and new businesses. This note argues that the increase in card sales cannot have been driven by the QR code technology. I also proffer an alternative explanation, namely, that Agarwal et al. simply capture the concurrent increase in popularity of contactless cards.