In recent years, microfinance institutions have expanded into group lending with individual liability, leaving out the joint liability clause which was an important feature in earlier lending contracts. Recent experimental evidence indicates that group lending may yield benefits, specifically...

In recent years, microfinance institutions have expanded into group lending with individual liability, leaving out the joint liability clause which was an important feature in earlier lending contracts. Recent experimental evidence indicates that group lending may yield benefits, specifically...

Peer-group mechanisms have been widely used by micro-credit institutions to minimize default risk. However, there are costs associated with establishing and maintaining liability groups. In the case when output is fully observable, we propose a dynamic individual lending mechanism. Assuming that...

In an environment with correlated returns, this paper characterizes optimal lending contracts when the bank faces adverse selection and borrowers have limited liability. Group lending contracts are shown to be dominated by revelation mech- anisms which do not use the ex post observability of the...

Using data from a recent survey of bank and enterprise managers and government officials in southern China, we present a new explanation for the rise and fall of collectively-owned township and village enterprises (TVEs) based on the willingness of banks to finance collective enterprise...

We examine group-lending under sequential financing. In a model with moral hazard, social capital and endogenous group formation, we identify conditions such that sequential financing with joint liability leads to positive assortative matching between borrowers with and without social capital...

Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the empirical importance of adverse selection and moral hazard in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers issued by a major South...

Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the empirical importance of adverse selection and moral hazard in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers issued by a major South...

Microinsurers strive to simplify products and their pricing, a trend that runs counter to the customization and complex underwriting of insurance in richer markets. While necessary to reduce costs and reach wide scale, this trend opens microinsurance markets to problems of information...

Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the empirical importance of adverse selection and moral hazard in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers issued by a major South...