Majority of the population of Rajasthan lives in rural areas. Before independence, debt payments were made by moneylenders and Nagar Seth. After the establishment of the Village Bank on October 2, 1975, they were entrusted with the task of disbursing village loans. Rural banks provide individual...

This study investigates the determinants of household participation in credit markets in Malawi using merged comprehensive data from the Integrated Household Survey. We find that larger family sizes increase the probability of households accessing credit from village banks, and that higher...

How do borrowers respond to improvements in a lender's ability to punish defaulters? We report the results of a randomized field experiment in rural Malawi that examines the impact of fingerprinting borrowers in a context where a unique identification system is absent. Fingerprinting allows the...