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Group versus individual liability : a field experiment in the Philippines

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Author Info
Gine, Xavier
Karlan, Dean S.

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Abstract

Group liability is often portrayed as the key innovation that led to the explosion of the microcredit movement, which started with the Grameen Bank in the 1970s and continues on today with hundreds of institutions around the world. Group lending claims to improve repayment rates and lower transaction costs when lending to the poor by providing incentives for peers to screen, monitor, and enforce each other's loans. However, some argue that group liability creates excessive pressure and discourages good clients from borrowing, jeopardizing both growth and sustainability. Therefore, it remains unclear whether group liability improves the lender’s overall profitability and the poor's access to financial markets. The authors worked with a bank in the Philippines to conduct a field experiment to examine these issues. They randomly assigned half of the 169 pre-existing group liability'centers'of approximately twenty women to individual-liability centers (treatment) and kept the other half as-is with group liability (control). We find that the conversion to individual liability does not affect the repayment rate, and leads to higher growth in center size by attracting new clients.

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Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 4008.

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Date of creation: 01 Sep 2006
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Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4008

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Related research
Keywords: Banks&Banking Reform; Knowledge Economy; Banking Law; Education for the Knowledge Economy; Contract Law;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Rahman, Aminur, 1999. "Micro-credit initiatives for equitable and sustainable development: Who pays?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 67-82, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 1999. "Group lending, local information and peer selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 27-50, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Jonathan Morduch, 1999. "The Microfinance Promise," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1569-1614, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Christian Ahlin & Robert Townsend, 2003. "Selection into and across Credit Contracts: Theory and Field Research," Working Papers 0323, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University. [Downloadable!]
  5. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1995. "Group lending, repayment incentives and social collateral," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-18, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Dean S. Karlan, 2005. "Social Connections and Group Banking," Working Papers 913, Economic Growth Center, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Beatriz Armendariz & Jonathan Morduch, 2007. "The Economics of Microfinance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262512017.
  8. Ashok S. Rai & Tomas Sj–str–m, 2004. "Is Grameen Lending Efficient? Repayment Incentives and Insurance in Village Economies," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 71(1), pages 217-234, 01. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Christian Ahlin & Robert Townsend, 2002. "Using Repayment Data to Test Across Models of Joint Liability Lending," Working Papers 0227, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University. [Downloadable!]
  10. Karlan, Dean S. & Zinman, Jonathan, 2007. "Observing Unobservables: Identifying Information Asymmetries with a Consumer Credit Field Experiment," CEPR Discussion Papers 6182, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Richard Montgomery, 1996. "Disciplining or protecting the poor? Avoiding the social costs of peer pressure in micro-credit schemes," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(2), pages 289-305.
  12. Wydick, Bruce, 1999. "Can Social Cohesion Be Harnessed to Repair Market Failures? Evidence from Group Lending in Guatemala," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(457), pages 463-75, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Gonzalez, Adrian, 2007. "Resilience of Microfinance Institutions to National Macroeconomic Events: An Econometric Analysis of MFI asset quality," MPRA Paper 4317, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  2. Karlan, Dean S., 2007. "Social Connections and Group Banking," CEPR Discussion Papers 6194, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Timothy N. Cason & Lata Gangadharan & Pushkar Maitra, 2008. "Moral Hazard and Peer Monitoring in a Laboratory Microfinance Experiment," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1208, Purdue University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  4. Hisaki Kono, 2006. "Is Group Lending A Good Enforcement Scheme for Achieving High Repayment Rates? Evidence from Field Experiments in Vietnam," Artefactual Field Experiments 0063, The Field Experiments Website. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Marie Godquin & Agnes R. Quisumbing, 2008. "Separate but equal? The gendered nature of social capital in rural Philippine communities," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 13-33. [Downloadable!]
  6. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2008. "Field Experiments in Economics: The Past, The Present, and The Future," NBER Working Papers 14356, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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