A Personal Touch: Text Messaging for Loan Repayment

Melanie Morten, Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman

No 121867, Center Discussion Papers from Yale University, Economic Growth Center

Abstract: We worked with two microlenders to test impacts of randomly assigned reminders for loan repayments in the “text messaging capital of the world”. We do not find strong evidence that loss versus gain framing or messaging timing matter. Messages only robustly improve repayment when they include the loan officer’s name. This effect holds for clients serviced by the loan officer previously but not for first-time borrowers. Taken together, the results highlight the potential and limits of communications technology for mitigating moral hazard, and suggest that personal obligation/reciprocity between borrowers and bank employees can be harnessed to help overcome market failures.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Financial Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19
Date: 2012-03
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Related works:
Working Paper: A Personal Touch: Text Messaging for Loan Repayment (2012)
Working Paper: A Personal Touch: Text Messaging for Loan Repayment (2012)
Working Paper: A Personal Touch: Text Messaging for Loan Repayment (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:yaleeg:121867

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.121867

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