IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/34817.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Group lending with endogenous group size

Author

Listed:
  • Bourjade, Sylvain
  • Schindele, Ibolya

Abstract

This paper focuses on the size of the borrower group in group lending. We show that, when social ties in a community enhance borrowers' incentives to exert effort, a profit-maximizing financier chooses a group of limited size. Borrowers that would be fundable under moral hazard but have insufficient social ties do not receive funding. The result arises because there is a trade-off between raising profits through increased group size and providing incentives for borrowers with less social ties. The result may explain why many micro-lending institutions and rural credit cooperatives lend to groups of small size.

Suggested Citation

  • Bourjade, Sylvain & Schindele, Ibolya, 2011. "Group lending with endogenous group size," MPRA Paper 34817, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:34817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/34817/1/MPRA_paper_34817.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn, 1993. "The Economics of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 792-810, September.
    3. Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 2003. "Collusion and group lending with adverse selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 329-348, April.
    4. de Aghion, Beatriz Armendariz & Gollier, Christian, 2000. "Peer Group Formation in an Adverse Selection Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 632-643, July.
    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.
    6. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    7. Ghatak, Maitreesh & Guinnane, Timothy W., 2003. "Erratum to "The economics of lending with joint liability: theory and practice" [J. Devel. Econ. 60 (1999) 195-228," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 261-262, February.
    8. 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.
    9. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & N'Guessan, Tchetche, 2000. "Group lending with adverse selection," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 773-784, May.
    10. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    11. Mark Wenner, 1995. "Group credit: A means to improve information transfer and loan repayment performance," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 263-281.
    12. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1674 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5133 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Philip Protter & Alejandra Quintos, 2022. "Optimal group size in microlending," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 121-132, March.
    2. Peter Simmons & Nongnuch Tantisantiwong, 2018. "Evaluation of Individual and Group Lending under Asymmetric information," Discussion Papers 18/01, Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Mohammed Kaicer & Abdelilah Kaddar, 2019. "Mathematical Analysis of Dynamic Risk Default in Microfinance," Papers 1907.04937, arXiv.org.
    4. Andreas Krause, 2025. "Group lending as a mechanism for self-insuring default risk," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 97-106, March.
    5. Bahar Rezaei & Sriram Dasu & Reza Ahmadi, 2017. "Optimal Group Size in Joint Liability Contracts," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 204-225, September.
    6. Peter J. Simmons & Nongnuch Tantisantiwong, 2022. "The Socially Optimal Loan Auditing with Multiple Projects," Discussion Papers 22/07, Department of Economics, University of York.

    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. Shyamal Chowdhury & Prabal Roy Chowdhury & Kunal Sengupta, 2014. "Sequential lending with dynamic joint liability in micro-finance," Discussion Papers 14-07, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    2. Xavier Gine & Dean Karlan, 2006. "Group versus Individual Liability: A Field Experiment in the Philippines," Working Papers 940, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    3. Ahlin, Christian, 2015. "The role of group size in group lending," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 140-155.
    4. Xavier Giné & Pamela Jakiela & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Morduch, 2010. "Microfinance Games," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 60-95, July.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Karlan, Dean & Gine, Xavier, 2009. "Group versus Individual Liability: Long Term Evidence from Philippine Microcredit Lending Groups," Working Papers 61, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    8. 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.
    9. Guush Berhane & Cornelis Gardebroek & Henk A. J. Moll, 2009. "Risk‐matching behavior in microcredit group formation: evidence from northern Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(4), pages 409-419, July.
    10. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Menicucci, Domenico, 2011. "When is the optimal lending contract in microfinance state non-contingent?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 720-731, June.
    11. Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 2003. "Collusion and group lending with adverse selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 329-348, April.
    12. 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.
    13. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Leonardo Becchetti, 2012. "Voting with the wallet," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 59(3), pages 245-268, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Pagura, Maria E., 2002. "The Hazard Of Client Exit In Microfinance," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19698, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Bond, Philip & Rai, Ashok S., 2008. "Cosigned vs. group loans," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1-2), pages 58-80, February.
    20. Das Chaudhury, Ratul & Bhattacharya, Sukanta, 2023. "When to seek expert advice? A simple model of borrowers with limited liability," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 113-120.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Group Lending; Moral Hazard; Social Capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    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:pra:mprapa:34817. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.