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...

Microfinance is generally associated with high repayment rates. However, it is not clear whether the success of microfinance results only from the use of group lending or mainly rely on peer sanctioning and long-term relationships that typically characterize microfinance contracts. In this...

Does human discretion improve or diminish lending outcomes? We assess this question in the context of a randomized, controlled experiment using a large group of lenders that rely on machine-generated credit scoring models provided by a third party to make monthly credit decisions. Working with...