IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v39y2011i6p882-897.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Microfinance and Investment: A Comparison with Bank and Informal Lending

Author

Listed:
  • Dalla Pellegrina, Lucia

Abstract

Summary Comparing the impact of different types of credit on households' investment in Bangladesh, we find that loans from microfinance institutions are likely to be channeled toward non-agricultural activities while both informal and bank lending are associated to a higher expenditure in agricultural inputs. Estimated effects are net of the differences in the amount borrowed, interest rates, and collateral. Results suggest that features which are specific to microfinance--such as tight repayment schedules and land-based eligibility rules--may reduce the suitability of this source of funds for the farming sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Dalla Pellegrina, Lucia, 2011. "Microfinance and Investment: A Comparison with Bank and Informal Lending," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 882-897, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:6:p:882-897
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1100057X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mark R. Rosenzweig & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 1985. "Specific Experience, Household Structure, and Intergenerational Transfers: Farm Family Land and Labor Arrangements in Developing Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(Supplemen), pages 961-987.
    3. Sudipta Bhattacharyya, 2005. "Interest rates, collateral and (de-)interlinkage: a micro-study of rural credit in West Bengal," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(3), pages 439-462, May.
    4. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1995. "Group lending, repayment incentives and social collateral," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-18, February.
    5. Rudolph C. Blitz & Millard F. Long, 1965. "The Economics of Usury Regulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73, pages 608-608.
    6. Basu, Kaushik, 1984. "Implicit Interest Rates, Usury and Isolation in Backward Agriculture," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 145-159, June.
    7. Signe-Mary McKernan, 2002. "The Impact Of Microcredit Programs On Self-Employment Profits: Do Noncredit Program Aspects Matter?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 93-115, February.
    8. Park, Cheolsung, 2006. "Risk Pooling between Households and Risk-Coping Measures in Developing Countries: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 423-457, January.
    9. repec:pri:rpdevs:morduch_microfinance_poor is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Peer Monitoring and Credit Markets," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 4(3), pages 351-366, September.
    11. Mark M. Pitt & Shahidur R. Khandker, 1998. "The Impact of Group-Based Credit Programs on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 958-996, October.
    12. Ghatak, Maitreesh & Guinnane, Timothy W., 1999. "The economics of lending with joint liability: theory and practice," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 195-228, October.
    13. Braverman, Avishay & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1982. "Sharecropping and the Interlinking of Agrarian Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 695-715, September.
    14. Niels Hermes & Robert Lensink, 2007. "The empirics of microfinance: what do we know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 1-10, February.
    15. Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1988. "Risk, Implicit Contracts and the Family in Rural Areas of Low-income Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(393), pages 1148-1170, December.
    16. Ahlin, Christian & Jiang, Neville, 2008. "Can micro-credit bring development?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 1-21, April.
    17. Jain, Sanjay & Mansuri, Ghazala, 2003. "A little at a time: the use of regularly scheduled repayments in microfinance programs," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 253-279, October.
    18. Caldwell, John C & Reddy, P H & Caldwell, Pat, 1986. "Periodic High Risk as a Cause of Fertility Decline in a Changing Rural Environment: Survival Strategies in the 1980-1983 South Indian Drought," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 677-701, July.
    19. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Stark, Oded, 1989. "Consumption Smoothing, Migration, and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 905-926, August.
    20. Mr. Rodolphe Blavy & Mr. Anupam Basu & Mr. Murat  Yulek, 2004. "Microfinance in Africa: Experience and Lessons From Selected African Countries," IMF Working Papers 2004/174, International Monetary Fund.
    21. Hermes, Niels & Lensink, Robert & Mehrteab, Habteab T., 2005. "Peer Monitoring, Social Ties and Moral Hazard in Group Lending Programs: Evidence from Eritrea," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 149-169, January.
    22. Aleem, Irfan, 1990. "Imperfect Information, Screening, and the Costs of Informal Lending: A Study of a Rural Credit Market in Pakistan," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 4(3), pages 329-349, September.
    23. Gilberto M. Llanto, 2007. "Overcoming Obstacles to Agricultural Microfinance: Looking at Broader Issues," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 4(2), pages 23-39, December.
    24. Pitt, Mark M & Rosenzweig, Mark R & Gibbons, Donna M, 1993. "The Determinants and Consequences of the Placement of Government Programs in Indonesia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 7(3), pages 319-348, September.
    25. Llanto, Gilberto M., 2007. "Overcoming Obstacles to Agricultural Microfinance: Looking at Broader Issues," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 4(2), pages 1-18, December.
    26. Bhaduri, Amit, 1977. "On the Formation of Usurious Interest Rates in Backward Agriculture," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 341-352, December.
    27. Paxton, Julia & Graham, Douglas & Thraen, Cameron, 2000. "Modeling Group Loan Repayment Behavior: New Insights from Burkina Faso," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(3), pages 639-655, April.
    28. Richard L. Meyer, 2002. "The demand for flexible microfinance products: lessons from Bangladesh," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 351-368.
    29. Khazzoom, J Daniel, 1976. "An Indirect Least Squares Estimator for Overidentified Equations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(4), pages 741-750, July.
    30. Eswaran, Mukesh & Kotwal, Ashok, 1985. "A Theory of Contractual Structure in Agriculture," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 352-367, June.
    31. Timberg, Thomas A & Aiyar, C V, 1984. "Informal Credit Markets in India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 43-59, October.
    32. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Timothy Besley & Timothy W. Guinnane, 1994. "Thy Neighbor's Keeper: The Design of a Credit Cooperative with Theory and a Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(2), pages 491-515.
    33. Heckman, James J, 1990. "Varieties of Selection Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 313-318, May.
    34. Sharma, Manohar & Zeller, Manfred, 1997. "Repayment performance in group-based credit programs in Bangladesh: An empirical analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(10), pages 1731-1742, October.
    35. 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 463-475, July.
    36. Bouman, F J A & Houtman, R, 1988. "Pawnbroking as an Instrument of Rural Banking in the Third World," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 69-89, October.
    37. Erica Field & Rohini Pande, 2008. "Repayment Frequency and Default in Microfinance: Evidence From India," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 501-509, 04-05.
    38. Craig McIntosh, 2008. "Estimating Treatment Effects from Spatial Policy Experiments: An Application to Ugandan Microfinance," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 15-28, February.
    39. Renate Schubert, 1999. "Financial Decision-Making: Are Women Really More Risk-Averse?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 381-385, May.
    40. Lawrance, Emily C, 1991. "Poverty and the Rate of Time Preference: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 54-77, February.
    41. Siwan Anderson, 2007. "The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 151-174, Fall.
    42. Mark R. Rosenzweig, 1980. "Neoclassical Theory and the Optimizing Peasant: An Econometric Analysis of Market Family Labor Supply in a Developing Country," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(1), pages 31-55.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Migheli, Matteo, 2016. "Land Ownership, Access to Informal Credit and Its Cost in Rural Vietnam," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201619, University of Turin.
    2. Pilar López-Sánchez & Elena Urquía-Grande & Cristina Campo & Andrés L. Cancer, 2022. "Delving into the Determinants of Default Risk in Savings Groups: Empirical Evidence from Ecuador," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(6), pages 2625-2650, December.
    3. Weber, Ron & Mußhoff, Oliver & Petrick, Martin, 2014. "How flexible repayment schedules affect credit risk in agricultural microfinance," Department of Agricultural and Rural Development (DARE) Discussion Papers 187434, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development (DARE).
    4. Md Aslam Mia & Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Patrick Damme & Mahinda Wijesiri, 2019. "Financial Inclusion, Deepening and Efficiency in Microfinance Programs: Evidence from Bangladesh," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(4), pages 809-835, September.
    5. Sarfo, Yaw & Musshoff, Oliver & Weber, Ron & Danne, Michael, 2021. "Farmers’ Willingness to Pay for Digital Credit: Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment in Madagascar," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315029, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Hermes, Niels & Lensink, Robert, 2011. "Microfinance: Its Impact, Outreach, and Sustainability," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 875-881, June.
    7. Waqas Ahmad, 2022. "The Role of Islamic Microfinance in Poverty Alleviation: Evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Economic Impact, Science Impact Publishers, vol. 4(1), pages 39-49.
    8. Maryann Bylander & Erin Hamilton, 2015. "Loans and Leaving: Migration and the Expansion of Microcredit in Cambodia," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 34(5), pages 687-708, October.
    9. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Angela De Michele & Giorgio Di Maio & Paolo Landoni & Susanna Parravicini, 2021. "Group Meeting Frequency and Borrowers’ Repayment Performance in Microfinance: Evidence from a Quasi-natural Experiment in South Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 30(5), pages 447-477.
    10. Weber, Ron & Mußhoff, Oliver & Petrick, Martin, 2014. "How flexible repayment schedules affect credit risk in agricultural microfinance," DARE Discussion Papers 1404, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development (DARE).
    11. Olga Kondratjeva, 2021. "Borrowing channels, purposes, and household investment and consumption: evidence from Nepal," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 1591-1613, December.
    12. Weber, Ron & Musshoff, Oliver, 2015. "Does pre-defined flexibility come with teh cost of higher credit risk? Evidence from agricultural micro lending in Madagascar," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211905, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Lucia dalla Pellegrina & Antonio Scollo, 2016. "The Role of Borrower-Cosigner Kinship Relations on Loan Default," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 2(3), pages 421-444, November.
    14. Robert M Hirth & Daanish Pestonjee, 2016. "How Group Lending Affects Innovation: Evidence From Ethiopia," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(04), pages 1-15, December.
    15. Ha van Dung, 2014. "Short-term precaution, insurance and saving mechanisms in rural Vietnam," Working Papers CIE 82, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    16. Pierrick Baraton & Florian Léon, 2016. "Financial Constraint, Entrepreneurship and Sectoral Migrations," DEM Discussion Paper Series 16-09, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    17. Wichyada Tanomchat & San Sampattavanija, 2018. "Dependence of Informal Interest Rates and Level of Lenders’ Influence in the Informal Loan Market in Thailand," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 24(1), pages 47-63, February.

    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. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina, 2007. "Microfinance and Investment: a Comparison with Bank and Informal Lending," Working Papers 20070401, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Dipartimento di Statistica, revised Apr 2007.
    2. 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.
    3. Li Gan & Manuel A. Hernandez & Yanyan Liu, 2018. "Group Lending With Heterogeneous Types," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 895-913, April.
    4. Carli, Francesco & Suetens, Sigrid & Uras, Burak & Visser, Philine, 2021. "Asymmetric Group Loan Contracts : Experimental Evidence," Other publications TiSEM 918d8091-4038-4d14-af04-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Al-Azzam, Moh’d & Parmeter, Christopher F. & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2020. "On the complex relationship between different aspects of social capital and group loan repayment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 92-107.
    6. Kurosaki, Takashi & Khan, Hidayat Ullah, 2011. "Vulnerability of Microfinance to Strategic Default and Covariate Shocks:Evidence from Pakistan," PRIMCED Discussion Paper Series 10, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    7. Al-Azzam, Moh'd & Carter Hill, R. & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2012. "Repayment performance in group lending: Evidence from Jordan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 404-414.
    8. Attanasio, Orazio & Augsburg, Britta & De Haas, Ralph & Fitzsimons, Emla & Harmgart, Heike, 2011. "Group lending or individual lending? Evidence from a randomised field experiment in Mongolia," MPRA Paper 35439, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kibrom A. ABAY & Bethelhem KORU & Gashaw Tadesse ABATE & Guush BERHANE, 2019. "How Should Rural Financial Cooperatives Be Best Organized? Evidence From Ethiopia," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(1), pages 187-215, March.
    10. Madestam, Andreas, 2014. "Informal finance: A theory of moneylenders," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 157-174.
    11. Joel M. Guttman, 2006. "Repayment Performance in Group Lending Programs: A Survey," NFI Working Papers 2006-WP-01, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    12. Karlan, Dean & Morduch, Jonathan, 2010. "Access to Finance," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4703-4784, Elsevier.
    13. Moh'd Al-Azzam & Maria Heracleous & Sudipta Sarangi, 2013. "Does the Group Leader Affect Repayment Performance Differently?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(2), pages 502-522, October.
    14. Thilo Klein, 2015. "Does Anti-Diversification Pay? A One-Sided Matching Model of Microcredit," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1521, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    15. Mahreen Mahmud, 2020. "Repaying Microcredit Loans: A Natural Experiment on Liability Structure," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(6), pages 1161-1176, June.
    16. Emilios Galariotis & Christophe Villa & Nurmukhammad Yusupov, 2011. "Recent Advances in Lending to the Poor with Asymmetric Information," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(9), pages 1371-1390, July.
    17. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Chowdhury, Prabal Roy & Sengupta, Kunal, 2014. "Sequential lending with dynamic joint liability in micro-finance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 167-180.
    18. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    19. M. Shahe Emran & A. K. M. Mahbub Morshed & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2021. "Microfinance and missing markets," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 34-67, February.
    20. Carli, Francesco & Uras, Burak R., 2017. "Joint-liability with endogenously asymmetric group loan contracts," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 72-90.

    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:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:6:p:882-897. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    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.