A large food multinational wishes to help micro-distributors in its supply chain with the financing of a productive asset. Collaborating with the firm in Kenya, we conduct a field experiment to compare asset financing under a traditional debt contract to three alternatives that provide a greater...

Standard models of investment predict that credit-constrained firms should grow rapidly when given additional capital, and that how this capital is provided should not affect decisions to invest in the business or consume the capital. The authors randomly gave cash and in-kind grants to male-...