IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hku/wpaper/201741.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Equity Impacts of Targeted Smallholder Agricultural Credit

Author

Listed:
  • Pushkar Maitra
  • Sandip Mitra

    (Sampling and Official Statistics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute)

  • Dilip Mookherjee
  • Sujata Visaria

    (HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies (IEMS)
    Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

We examine the distributive impacts of two alternative approaches to deliver agricultural credit to smallholders: TRAIL (or trader-agent intermediated lending), where local traders recommend village residents for individual liability micro-leans, and GBL (or group-based lending), where households self-select into groups and receive joint liability loans. We use data from a field experiment in eastern India to estimate how the effects of these schemes differ by economic (proxied by landownership) and social (proxied by caste and religion) status of households. Our method accounts for endogenous selection frequencies in each group and the treatment effects on farm income conditional on selection, to estimate the impacts of each scheme on Atkinson-based measures of welfare and inequality. We find that TRAIL loans increased farm incomes for all land groups, but particularly for landless households. As a result, across land groups, the TRAIL scheme generated significantly greater welfare than the GBL scheme, irrespective of inequality aversion. The GBL scheme generated larger effects among the socially disadvantaged minority groups. This suggests that the efficiency and equity implications of the two schemes might be different depending on how we partition households.

Suggested Citation

  • Pushkar Maitra & Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Sujata Visaria, 2017. "The Equity Impacts of Targeted Smallholder Agricultural Credit," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2017-41, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Mar 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:hku:wpaper:201741
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://iems.ust.hk/assets/publications/working-papers-2017/iemswp2017-41.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2017
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir & Jonathan Shaw, 2016. "Female Labor Supply, Human Capital, and Welfare Reform," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1705-1753, September.
    2. Maitra, Pushkar & Mitra, Sandip & Mookherjee, Dilip & Motta, Alberto & Visaria, Sujata, 2017. "Financing smallholder agriculture: An experiment with agent-intermediated microloans in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 306-337.
    3. Alessandro Tarozzi & Jaikishan Desai & Kristin Johnson, 2015. "The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Ethiopia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 54-89, January.
    4. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2000. "Screening by the Company You Keep: Joint Liability Lending and the Peer Selection Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 601-631, July.
    5. Amin, Sajeda & Rai, Ashok S. & Topa, Giorgio, 2003. "Does microcredit reach the poor and vulnerable? Evidence from northern Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 59-82, February.
    6. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1992. "Workfare versus Welfare Incentive Arguments for Work Requirements in Poverty-Alleviation Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 249-261, March.
    7. Newbery, David M, 1995. "The Distributional Impact of Price Changes in Hungary and the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(431), pages 847-863, July.
    8. Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, 2013. "Microcredit Under the Microscope: What Have We Learned in the Past Two Decades, and What Do We Need to Know?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 487-519, May.
    9. Jonathan Morduch, 1999. "The Microfinance Promise," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1569-1614, December.
    10. Navajas, Sergio & Schreiner, Mark & Meyer, Richard L. & Gonzalez-vega, Claudio & Rodriguez-meza, Jorge, 2000. "Microcredit and the Poorest of the Poor: Theory and Evidence from Bolivia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 333-346, February.
    11. Orazio Attanasio & Britta Augsburg & Ralph De Haas & Emla Fitzsimons & Heike Harmgart, 2015. "The Impacts of Microfinance: Evidence from Joint-Liability Lending in Mongolia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 90-122, January.
    12. Galasso, Emanuela & Ravallion, Martin, 2005. "Decentralized targeting of an antipoverty program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 705-727, April.
    13. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Rachel Glennerster & Cynthia Kinnan, 2015. "The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 22-53, January.
    14. Bardhan, Pranab & Mookherjee, Dilip, 2005. "Decentralizing antipoverty program delivery in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 675-704, April.
    15. Abhijit Banerjee & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Zinman, 2015. "Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21, January.
    16. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1988. "Cash versus Kind, Self-selection, and Efficient Transfers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 691-700, September.
    17. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    18. Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1971. "Optimal Mechanisms for Income Transfer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 324-334, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oriana Bandiera & Robin Burgess & Erika Deserranno & Ricardo Morel & Imran Rasul & Munshi Sulaiman & Jack Thiemel, 2022. "Microfinance and Diversification," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(S1), pages 239-275, June.
    2. Ahlin, Christian & Gulesci, Selim & Madestam, Andreas & Stryjan, Miri, 2020. "Loan contract structure and adverse selection: Survey evidence from Uganda," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 180-195.
    3. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos, 2019. "20 years of research in microfinance: An information management approach," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 183-197.
    4. Nakano, Yuko & Magezi, Eustadius F., 2020. "The impact of microcredit on agricultural technology adoption and productivity: Evidence from randomized control trial in Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Baulia, Susmita, 2019. "Take-up of joint and individual liability loans: An analysis with laboratory experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    6. Meager, Rachael, 2022. "Aggregating distributional treatment effects: a Bayesian hierarchical analysis of the microcredit literature," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115559, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Lota Tamini & Ibrahima Bocoum & Ghislain Auger & Kotchikpa Gabriel Lawin & Arahama Traoré, 2019. "Enhanced Microfinance Services and Agricultural Best Management Practices: What Benefits for Smallholders Farmers? An Evidence from Burkina Faso," CIRANO Working Papers 2019s-11, CIRANO.
    8. Junxue Jia & Cong Qin & Yongzheng Liu, 2017. "Do Community-Based Development Projects Alleviate Poverty? Evidence from Rural China," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1722, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    9. Aragón, Fernando M. & Karaivanov, Alexander & Krishnaswamy, Karuna, 2020. "Credit lines in microcredit: Short-term evidence from a randomized controlled trial in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. Bardsley, Peter & Meager, Rachael, 2019. "Competing lending platforms, endogenous reputation, and fragility in microcredit markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 107-126.
    11. Meager, Rachael & Sturdy, Jennifer, 2017. "Aggregating Distributional Treatment Effects: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of the Microcredit Literature," MetaArXiv 7tkvm, Center for Open Science.
    12. Rachael Meager, 2015. "Understanding the Impact of Microcredit Expansions: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of 7 Randomised Experiments," Papers 1506.06669, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2016.
    13. Ding, Haoyuan & Qin, Cong & Shi, Kang, 2018. "Who benefit from government-led microfinance projects? Evidence from rural China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1253-1272.
    14. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio Di Maio & Paolo Landoni & Emanuele Rusinà, 2021. "Money management and entrepreneurial training in microfinance: impact on beneficiaries and institutions," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(3), pages 1049-1085, October.
    15. Emily Breza & Cynthia Kinnan, 2021. "Measuring the Equilibrium Impacts of Credit: Evidence from the Indian Microfinance Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1447-1497.
    16. N'dri, Lasme Mathieu & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2020. "Financial inclusion, mobile money, and individual welfare: The case of Burkina Faso," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    17. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee & Daniel Wilhelm, 2020. "Optimal data collection for randomized control trials [Microcredit impacts: Evidence from a randomized microcredit program placement experiment by Compartamos Banco]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(1), pages 1-31.
    18. Abhijit Banerjee & Emily Breza & Esther Duflo & Cynthia Kinnan, 2019. "Can Microfinance Unlock a Poverty Trap for Some Entrepreneurs?," NBER Working Papers 26346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Maitra, Pushkar & Mitra, Sandip & Mookherjee, Dilip & Motta, Alberto & Visaria, Sujata, 2017. "Financing smallholder agriculture: An experiment with agent-intermediated microloans in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 306-337.
    20. Simon Zaby, 2019. "Science Mapping of the Global Knowledge Base on Microfinance: Influential Authors and Documents, 1989–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-21, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    agricultural finance; agent based lending; group lending; distributive impacts;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hku:wpaper:201741. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Carla Chan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieusthk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.