Mobile Money: Communication, Consumption and Change in the Payments Space

This article explores the emerging field of 'mobile money': mobile phone-enabled systems for value transfer and storage, primarily in the developing world, which are heralded as signal interventions in the effort to broaden financial inclusion and bank the 'unbanked.' Focusing on the stories that circulate in the emergent network of expertise that is calling 'mobile money' into being, it discusses how economic techniques and social narratives about markets - specifically, narratives about the opportunities for profit and financial inclusion in the 'payments space' - format a consumer market for mobile money. Furthermore, it asks whether end-users' repurposing of mobile money - and the use of airtime as currency - heralds a new means of exchange or store of value, potentially remaking money in the process. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

The 'Welfare Market' and the Flexible New Deal: Lessons from Other Countries

Recent British welfare reform involves the creation of a managed welfare market for the delivery of employment programmes. This article critically reviews evidence on the development and impacts of such markets in Australia, the USA and the Netherlands. It considers the emergence of problems with 'creaming' and 'parking' of participants and the challenges that 'market makers' must meet if they are to secure anticipated improvements in service delivery and outcomes.