IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v27y2013i3p437-469.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Liability Structure in Small-Scale Finance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Fenella Carpena
  • Shawn Cole
  • Jeremy Shapiro
  • Bilal Zia

Abstract

Microfinance, the provision of small individual and business loans, has experienced dramatic growth, reaching over 150 million borrowers worldwide. Much of the success of microfinance has been attributed to attempts to overcome the challenges of information asymmetries in uncollateralized lending. However, very little is known about the optimal contract structure of these loans, and there is substantial variation across lenders, even within a particular setting. This paper exploits a plausibly exogenous change in the liability structure offered by a microfinance program in India, which shifted from individual to group liability lending. We find evidence that the lending model matters: for the same borrower, the required monthly loan installments are 11 percent less likely to be missed under the group liability setting in comparison with individual liability. In addition, compulsory savings deposits are 20 percent less likely to be missed under group liability contracts. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Fenella Carpena & Shawn Cole & Jeremy Shapiro & Bilal Zia, 2013. "Liability Structure in Small-Scale Finance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 27(3), pages 437-469.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:27:y:2013:i:3:p:437-469
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhs031
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Feigenberg, Benjamin & Field, Erica M. & Pande, Rohini, 2010. "Building Social Capital through Microfinance," Working Paper Series rwp10-019, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "Financial Dependence and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 559-586, June.
    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. Gugerty, Mary Kay, 2007. "You Can't Save Alone: Commitment in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Kenya," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 251-282, January.
    6. Bouman, F. J. A., 1995. "Rotating and accumulating savings and credit associations: A development perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 371-384, March.
    7. Nicola Cetorelli & Michele Gambera, 2001. "Banking Market Structure, Financial Dependence and Growth: International Evidence from Industry Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 617-648, April.
    8. Ashraf, Nava & Karlan, Dean & Yin, Wesley, 2010. "Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 333-344, March.
    9. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    10. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Martinez Peria, Maria Soledad, 2007. "Reaching out: Access to and use of banking services across countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 234-266, July.
    11. Mary Kay Gugerty, 2007. "You Can't Save Alone: Commitment in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Kenya," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55, pages 251-282.
    12. Armendariz de Aghion, Beatriz, 1999. "On the design of a credit agreement with peer monitoring," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 79-104, October.
    13. Greg Fischer, 2011. "Contract Structure, Risk Sharing and Investment Choice," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 023, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    14. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç‐Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 2005. "Financial and Legal Constraints to Growth: Does Firm Size Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 137-177, February.
    15. 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.
    16. Christian Ahlin & RobertM. Townsend, 2007. "Using Repayment Data to Test Across Models of Joint Liability Lending," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 11-51, February.
    17. 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.
    18. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Peer Monitoring and Credit Markets," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 4(3), pages 351-366, September.
    19. Fischer, Gregory, 2011. "Contract structure, risk sharing and investment choice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 41890, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Orazio Attanasio & Britta Augsburg & Ralph De Haas & Emla Fitzsimons & Heike Harmgart, 2011. "Group lending or individual lending? Evidence from a randomised field experiment in Mongolia," IFS Working Papers W11/20, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    21. Xavier Giné & Dean Karlan, 2009. "Group versus Individual Liability: Long Term Evidence from Philippine Microcredit Lending Groups," Working Papers 970, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    22. Ambec, Stefan & Treich, Nicolas, 2007. "Roscas as financial agreements to cope with self-control problems," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 120-137, January.
    23. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    24. World Bank, 2008. "Finance for All? Policies and Pitfalls in Expanding Access," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6905, December.
    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. Thorsten Beck & Patrick Behr, 2017. "Individual versus Village Lending: Evidence from Montenegro," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 67-87, November.
    2. de Quidt, Jonathan & Fetzer, Thiemo & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2018. "Commercialization and the decline of joint liability microcredit," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 209-225.
    3. Sanjit Dhami & Junaid Arshad & Ali al-Nowaihi, 2019. "Psychological and Social Motivations in Microfinance Contracts: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 7773, CESifo.
    4. 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.
    5. Francisco J Buera & Joseph P Kaboski & Yongseok Shin, 2021. "The Macroeconomics of Microfinance," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 126-161.
    6. Orazio Attanasio & Britta Augsburg & Ralph De Haas, 2019. "Microcredit Contracts, Risk Diversification and Loan Take-Up," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(6), pages 1797-1842.
    7. Gharad Bryan & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Zinman, 2015. "Referrals: Peer Screening and Enforcement in a Consumer Credit Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 174-204, August.
    8. Marc Labie & Carolina Laureti & Ariane Szafarz, 2013. "Flexible Products in Microfinance: Overcoming the Demand-Supply Mismatch," Working Papers CEB 13-044, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    9. de Quidt, Jonathan & Fetzer, Thiemo & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2016. "Group lending without joint liability," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 217-236.
    10. Orazio Attanasio & Britta Augsburg & Ralph De Haas & Emla Fitzsimons & Heike Harmgart, 2011. "Group lending or individual lending? Evidence from a randomised field experiment in Mongolia," IFS Working Papers W11/20, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    11. Ernest Liu & Benjamin N. Roth, 2020. "Contractual Restrictions and Debt Traps," Working Papers 2020-30, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    12. Attanasio, O.P. & Augsburg, B. & de Haas, R. & Fitzsimons, E. & Harmgart, H., 2013. "Group Lending or Individual Lending? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment in Rural Mongolia," Discussion Paper 2013-074, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    13. Dhami, Sanjit & Arshad, Junaid & al-Nowaihi, Ali, 2022. "Psychological and social motivations in microfinance contracts: Theory and evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. 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).
    15. Cristián Pinto, 2015. "The Effect of Labor Market Flexibility on Microfinance Institutions Performance: International Evidence," Serie Working Papers 21, Universidad del Desarrollo, School of Business and Economics.
    16. Berns, John P. & Shahriar, Abu Zafar M. & Unda, Luisa A., 2021. "Delegated monitoring in crowdfunded microfinance: Evidence from Kiva," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    17. Tchakoute Tchuigoua, Hubert & Soumaré, Issouf & Hessou, Hélyoth T.S., 2020. "Lending and business cycle: Evidence from microfinance institutions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 1-12.
    18. Giné, Xavier & Karlan, Dean S., 2014. "Group versus individual liability: Short and long term evidence from Philippine microcredit lending groups," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 65-83.

    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. 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.
    2. Soyolmaa Batbekh & Keith Blackburn, 2008. "On the Macroeconomics of Microfinance," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 106, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    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. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Karna Basu, 2011. "Hyperbolic Discounting and the Sustainability of Rotational Savings Arrangements," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 143-171, November.
    7. Altınok, Ahmet & Sever, Can, 2014. "Efficient Microlending without Joint Liability," MPRA Paper 56598, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Bruno, Olivier & Khachatryan, Knar, 2020. "Compulsory versus voluntary savings as an incentive mechanism in microfinance programs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    9. 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.
    10. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    11. Karaivanov, Alexander & Xing, Xiaochuan & Xue, Yi, 2020. "Bogus joint liability groups in microfinance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Tchakoute-Tchuigoua, Hubert, 2012. "Active risk management and loan contract terms: Evidence from rated microfinance institutions," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 427-437.
    14. Li, Shanjun & Liu, Yanyan & Deininger, Klaus W., 2009. "How Important are Peer Effects in Group Lending? Estimating a Static Game of Incomplete Information," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49497, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Ahlin, Christian & Jiang, Neville, 2008. "Can micro-credit bring development?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 1-21, April.
    16. Olivier Dagnelie & Philippe Lemay‐Boucher, 2012. "Rosca Participation in Benin: A Commitment Issue," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(2), pages 235-252, April.
    17. Beatriz Armendáriz & Ariane Szafarz, 2011. "On Mission Drift in Microfinance Institutions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Beatriz Armendáriz & Marc Labie (ed.), The Handbook Of Microfinance, chapter 16, pages 341-366, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Francisco J Buera & Joseph P Kaboski & Yongseok Shin, 2021. "The Macroeconomics of Microfinance," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 126-161.
    19. 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.
    20. Lensink, Robert & Eijkel, Remco van & Hermes, Niels, 2007. "Group lending and the role of the group leader:Theory and evidence from Eritrea," Research Report 07004, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).

    More about this item

    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:oup:wbecrv:v:27:y:2013:i:3:p:437-469. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.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.