We offer a new test of the ex ante theory of collateral. Theory states that lenders rely less on collateral if they have better information about borrowers. We test this by contrasting the use of collateral between formal and – better informed – informal lenders in a developing financial...

The ex ante theory of collateral states that better informed lenders, such as informal lenders, rely less on collateral. We test this by contrasting the use of collateral between formal and informal lenders in the same market. Indeed, formal lenders rely more often on collateral, controlling for...

Over the past 20 years, China has granted a conspicuous amount of loans to African countries. New loan data show that compared to Western multilateral loans, Chinese loans have relatively high interest rates and shorter maturities, tend to be highly collateralized, and are volatile over time....

While financial inclusion is typically addressed by improving the financial infrastructure, we show that a higher degree of financial literacy also has a clear beneficial effect. We study this effect at the cross-country level, which allows us to consider institutional variation. Regarding...

About two billion people in the world do not own a financial account and there are many more who use financial services only occasionally. In the past, initiatives which address these problems of financial exclusion focused on the supply side of financial markets, in particular by increasing the...