Identifying the impacts of liquidity shocks on spending decisions is difficult methodologically but important for theory, practice, and policy. Using seven different methods on microenterprise loan applicants, we find striking results. Borrowers report uses of loan proceeds strategically, and...

Theory and evidence have raised concerns that microcredit does more harm than good, particularly when offered at high interest rates. We use a clustered randomized trial, and household surveys of eligible borrowers and their businesses, to estimate impacts from an expansion of group lending at...

We use a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to analyse the impact of microcredit on poverty reduction in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The study population are loan appli-cants that would normally have just been rejected based on regular screening. We find that access to credit allowed borrowers to...

This paper is an attempt to understand the factors behind low contract renewal rates frequently observed in insurance programs in poor countries. This is done on the basis of the experience of a microinsurance health program in India. We show that deficient information about the insurance...

The purpose of this article is to structure the extant knowledge on the determinants of microinsurance demand and to discuss unresolved questions that deserve future research. To achieve this outcome, we review the academic literature on microinsurance demand published between 2000 and early...