Does household financial access facilitate law compliance? Evidence from Mexico

We investigate the impact of financial access on law compliance (whether workers are registered in a mandated social security system). In contrast to previous studies that focus on firms’ access to credit, we investigate workers’ access to credit. Exploiting the geographic variation in financial access due to Banco Azteca’s opening in Mexico in 2002 that changed financial access by poor people almost over-night, we find that financial access increased the probability of getting formalized.