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on Microfinance |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”); Pierluigi Conzo (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”) |
| Abstract: | Two crucial problems when research agencies or donors need to asses empirically the microfinance/children education nexus on already operating organizations are lack of availability of panel data and selection bias. We propose an original approach which tackles these problems by combining retrospective panel data, fixed effects and comparison between pre and post-treatment trends. The relative advantage of our approach vis-à-vis standard cross-sectional estimates (and even panels with just two observations repeated in time) is that it allows to analyse the progressive effects of microfinance on borrowers. With this respect our paper gives an answer to the widespread demand of impact methodologies required by regulators or by funding agencies which need to evaluate the current and past performance of existing institutions. We apply our approach to a sample of microfinance borrowers coming from two districts of Buenos Aires with different average income levels. By controlling for survivorship bias and heterogeneity in time invariant and time varying characteristics of respondents we find that years of credit history have a positive and significant effect on child schooling conditional to the borrower’s standard of living and distance from school. |
| Keywords: | child schooling, microfinance, retrospective data, impact evaluation. |
| JEL: | D13 G20 I21 J22 J24 O12 O16 O18 O54 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2010-173&r=mfd |
| By: | Munshi Sulaiman; Imran Matin; M Shahadat Hossain Siddiquee; Proloy Barua; Vidya Iyer |
| Abstract: | This study takes a look at the beneficiaries who were selected at the first round in 2002 to explain various dimensions of their engagement with microfinance. With a lower borrower-member ratio and relatively smaller sized credit, microfinance for the poorest may take longer to achieve sustainability. Even within the ultra poor household group, the better-off ones are more likely to engage themselves with microfinance. Their engagement in semi-formal microfinance does not reduce involvement in informal financial market. Along with credit, accumulating savings is of utmost importance for the ultra poor households and their informal savings have increased. Given that almost a quarter of the TUP members may not be credit takers, the importance of appropriate savings products cannot be overemphasized. More innovations in this regard is thus critical.[Working Paper Series No. 9] |
| Keywords: | beneficiaries, microfinance, sustainability, accumulating, appropriate savings, overemphasized, innovations, critical |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2627&r=mfd |
| By: | Ulf Lilienfeld Toal; Dilip Mookherjee; Sujata Visaria |
| Abstract: | It is generally presumed that strengthening the legal enforcement of lender rights increases credit access for all borrowers, by expanding the set of incentive compatible loan contracts. This presumption is based on an implicit assumption of infinitely elastic supply of loans. With inelastic supply, strengthening enforcement generates general equilibrium effects which may reduce credit access for small borrowers, while expanding it for wealthy borrowers. In a firm-level panel, we find evidence of such adverse distributional impacts caused by an Indian judicial reform in the 1990s which increased banks' ability to recover non-performing loans.[Working Paper No. 254] |
| Keywords: | law, finance, contract enforcement, credit rationing |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2613&r=mfd |