This paper examines the contribution of recently introduced village funds in rural Thailand, one of the largest microfinance programs ever implemented. We use a cross-sectional approach examining village funds in relation to competing financial institutions. We find, first, that village funds...

This paper examines the role of collateral in the rural credit market of an emerging country. Due to opaque information and weak enforcement, the need for collateral is expected to be high. However, rural households usually lack adequate assets to pledge as collateral. How is this puzzle solved?...

This paper examines whether recently introduced village funds", one of the largest microfinance programs ever implemented, improve access to finance. Village funds are analyzed in a cross-sectional approach in relation to competing financial institutions. We find, first, that they reach the...

Due to opaque information and weak enforcement in emerging loan markets, the need for collateral is high, whereas borrowers lack adequate assets to pledge as collateral. How is this puzzle solved? We find for a representative sample from Northeast Thailand that indeed most loans do not include...

This paper examines the nature of risk faced by households in Thailand and the strategies that these households adopt to mitigate the adverse effect from income shortfalls. I use a new cross-section dataset that is based on a sample of both urban and rural households. I find that price shock is...

We provide new micro evidence on the discussion about the relationship between financial development and welfare. Relying on the concept of local financial development our analysis focuses on three dimensions of household welfare: vulnerability to poverty, investment, and consumption smoothing....

We provide new micro evidence on the discussion about the relationship between financial development and welfare. Relying on the concept of local financial development our analysis focuses on three dimensions of household welfare: vulnerability to poverty, investment, and consumption smoothing....

This paper provides novel evidence on exchange rate expectations of both chartists and fundamentalists separately. These groups indeed form expectations differently. Chartists change their expectations more often; however, all professionals´ expectations vary considerably as they generally...

Nowadays foreign exchange interventions occur in emerging market economies whereas empirical studies on interventions mainly refer to advanced economies. However, interventions in emerging markets are different from those in advanced economies: they occur regularly and central banks have...

We examine whether the experience of shocks influences individual risk attitude. We measure risk attitude via a simple survey item, compiled among more than 4,000 households in Thailand and Vietnam. The experience of adverse shocks, which is typical for poor and vulnerable households, is related...