Investment in improved agricultural inputs is infrequent for smallholder farmers in Africa. One barrier may be limited access to formal savings. This is the first study to use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of using mobile money as a tool to promote agricultural investment....

The paper empirically investigates credit access and borrowing costs in Poland's rural financial market. We conduct an econometric analysis based on cross-sectional survey data including formal loans taken in the period 1997-1999. A hedonic regression of the effective interest rate, comprising...

This paper deals with the analysis of the impact of credit rationing on the farmer's economic equilibrium and the analysis of different policy scenarios in a derived neoclassical adjustment cost framework. The theoretical model is an optimal dynamic investment model, in which the upper bound on...

I estimate stochastic frontier models for agricultural productivity using factors that proxy for absolute risk aversion (e.g. loan amounts) and factors that proxy for relative risk aversion (loan pricing or interest rates). Empirical findings show absolute risk aversion ceases to matter for...

We find financing helps make up for deficiencies in farming experience and the absence of crop insurance, such that farmers that have less experience or do not have crop insurance are more likely to adopt productivity enhancing activities. We also find farmers are less likely to spend on output...

Inter-annual climate variability in the Southeastern US that affects farm productivity and cash flows is largely driven by the predictable El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of the ENSO anomalies on the performance of agricultural loan...

We partnered with a micro-lender in Mali to randomize credit offers at the village level. Then, in no-loan control villages, we gave cash grants to randomly selected households. These grants led to higher agricultural investments and profits, thus showing that liquidity constraints bind with...