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How Much do Existing Borrowers Value Microfinance? Evidence from an Experiment on Bundling Microcredit and Insurance

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  • Abhijit Banerjee
  • Esther Duflo
  • Richard Hornbeck

Abstract

Several recent randomized controlled trials have found only modest effects of microfinance on consumption and income. However, these studies by design estimate impacts on new clients, so these modest effects may only have been lower bounds on the gains for more-experienced borrowers and the longer-run potential for microfinance. We examine the causal impacts of microfinance on experienced borrowers, and these clients' valuation of their ongoing microfinance relationship. Our research design uses an episode during which a microfinance institution modestly increased their clients' fees in randomly selected villages in exchange for a mandatory health insurance policy (which turned out to be entirely useless due to administrative failures). Our first result is that this modest increase in fees led to a 22 percentage point (or 30%) decline in loan renewal in treatment villages, compared to control villages where the policy was not introduced. Using this randomly generated variation in microfinance participation among established microfinance borrowers, we find impacts of microfinance that are strikingly similar to the previous literature: neither business outcomes nor household consumption outcomes were affected, on average, for the most part. Consistent with some previous studies, there were some declines in an index of business outcomes and declines in durable goods purchases, but only for those clients who had a business before microfinance entered the village. By contrast, businesses that started after microfinance had entered the villages were unaffected in terms of business outcomes but enjoyed an increase in non-durable goods consumption. This heterogeneity in effects is consistent with a simple model in which durable goods are lumpy purchases. The high drop-out from microfinance further suggests that the net gains from microfinance are small for a substantial share of borrowers. Strikingly, those who had a business before microfinance are as likely to exit as other borrowers, despite suffering large losses in business earnings as a result, which raises the possibility of substantial unmeasured costs from running microfinance-funded businesses.

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  • Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Richard Hornbeck, 2014. "How Much do Existing Borrowers Value Microfinance? Evidence from an Experiment on Bundling Microcredit and Insurance," NBER Working Papers 20477, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20477
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    2. Craig McIntosh & Felix Povel & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2019. "Utility, Risk and Demand for Incomplete Insurance: Lab Experiments with Guatemalan Co-Operatives," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2581-2607.
    3. Neuberger, Doris, 2015. "Financial Inclusion, Regulation, and Education in Germany," ADBI Working Papers 530, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    4. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Hasan, Syed & Sharma, Uttam, 2024. "The Role of Trainee Selection in the Effectiveness of Vocational Training: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Nepal," IZA Discussion Papers 16705, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Manthos D. Delis & Fulvia Fringuellotti & Steven Ongena, 2020. "Credit and Income Inequality," Staff Reports 929, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    6. Feldhoff, Charlotte H. & Liu, Yi & Feldhoff, Patricia R., 2019. "Does microfinance have an impact on borrower's consumption patterns and women's empowerment?," Weidener Diskussionspapiere 67, University of Applied Sciences Amberg-Weiden (OTH).

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    JEL classification:

    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

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