Win Some Lose Some? Evidence from a Randomized Microcredit Program Placement Experiment by Compartamos Banco-Working Paper 330

Dean Karlan ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Dean Karlan, Manuela Angelucci and Jonathan Zinman

No 330, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: Theory and evidence have raised concerns that microcredit does more harm than good, particularly when offered at high interest rates. We use a clustered randomized trial, and household surveys of eligible borrowers and their businesses, to estimate impacts from an expansion of group lending at 110% APR by the largest microlender in Mexico. Average effects on a rich set of outcomes measured 18-34 months post-expansion suggest some good and little harm. Other estimators identify heterogeneous treatment effects and effects on outcome distributions, but again yield little support for the hypothesis that microcredit causes harm.

Keywords: microcredit; microcredit impact; microentrepreneurship; Compartamos Banco (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D22 G21 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 69 pages
Date: 2013-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-exp and nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:330

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