The individual behavior in the credit market has been poorly studied for the Mexican Economy. We do not know about the mechanism used to solve liquidity restrictions. We neither know the suppliers that provide more credits. It is important to identify whether individuals use the credit market to invest in human capital or in response to negative income shocks. Moreover, it is important to characterize the credit market in order to find the average borrowed amount, the set of suppliers, the cost for each one (interest rate), and how frequently it is used. Using the Mexican Family Live Survey 2002 (MXFLS-2002), we find that people living in rural communities and in the southern part of the country have the lower participation rates in the credit market. Also, agents have little knowledge about the credit market. We also learn they know better the informal sources that the formal ones. We show that “savings and loans cooperatives” are the most frequently used source in the formal market, while in the formal market the most used source is the “fiado” (sell on credit in the informal market). On the other hand, debt levels and interest rates are negatively correlated. Women have lower debt in the informal market and men have the lower debt in the formal one. Finally, by using a model that controls by selection problems, we find that schooling, household assets and low interest rates have a positive impact on the participation rate in the credit market.
