This article provides a methodological bridge leading from the well-developed theory of credit rationing to the less developed territory of empirically identifying credit constraints. We begin by developing a simple model showing that credit constraints may take three forms: quantity rationing,...

From field observations of credit cooperatives in Cameroon, we find that 19% of the loans taken are fully collateralized by savings held in the same institutions. This behavior is costly to the borrower, as it represents a net interest payment of about 24% per year. While traditional...

We analyze the individualization of farm units in Mali in the sense of a transformation of purely collective farms into mixed units in which private plots coexist with collective fields. Since a moral-hazard-in-team problem plagues production on the latter and the household head extracts his...