Can financial products reduce poverty and vulnerability? Experimental evidence from Benin on the impact of access to saving accounts and microcredit.

在许多发展行动者和公共援助捐助者中，人们普遍认为穷人无法摆脱贫困，因为他们受到信贷限制，因此无法投资。他们信贷受限的主要原因是缺乏抵押品。小额信贷，即向穷人提供小额贷款的做法，被誉为最不发达国家（LDCs）消除贫困的关键工具。人们很容易忽视这样一个事实，即穷人实际上可能想要的不是贷款，而只是能够将他们的储蓄存入一个安全可靠的账户。在这种情况下，向穷人提供负担得起的正式储蓄账户（小额储蓄）最能满足他们的利益。为了解决这一经验上的薄弱环节，该项目将通过比较正式（小额信贷和小额储蓄）和非正式金融服务来分析穷人的金融需求。通过在西非贝宁进行的随机对照试验，我们将测试哪种金融工具在帮助个人减少贫困和脆弱性方面更有效。鉴于最不发达国家的绝大多数人口几乎没有机会获得正式融资，小额信贷和小额储蓄具有极大的意义。贝宁的大多数个人使用非正式的储蓄或贷款机制；非正式的，由于缺乏任何有约束力的法律安排。由于缺乏正规金融，许多贝宁人求助于轮流储蓄和信贷协会（rosca）。参加rosca的费用很高，而且没有利息。他们的成员还承担其他成员违约的风险，这经常导致经济损失和团体破裂。ROSCA成员在储蓄方面的灵活性不如他们自己，因为团体决定的缴款水平可能与他们个人的最佳储蓄率不同。尽管有这些限制，rosca在最不发达国家仍然很受欢迎和普遍。人们可以推测，获得更安全和可靠的正规金融产品可以大大提高人们的储蓄和投资能力，并减少穷人几乎每天都面临的冲击所带来的影响。为了进行比较分析，我们将向不同样本的个人提供小额信贷和小额储蓄。这将使我们能够：1)分析是什么推动了对这些金融工具的需求，并加深我们对穷人储蓄和投资动机的理解。2)比较小额信贷与小额储蓄的有效性，并检查正规金融服务在帮助个人摆脱贫困方面是否比rosca更有效。因此，我们的建议直接解决了本呼吁的首要问题1。3)调查正规金融对消费模式和非正规金融使用的辅助效应。正规的财务是否有助于减少在奢侈品上的支出？穷人是否能更好地管理以避免陷入债务陷阱，无论是否有正式融资？正规金融是否将人们赶出rosca ？4)分析由此产生的投资及其在教育和卫生这两个关键方面的可持续性。众所周知，这些因素对长期贫困有着至关重要的影响。有充分证据表明，疾病和干旱等冲击对穷人保持持续消费和投资于人力资本的能力造成严重后果。如果小额储蓄比小额信贷更能帮助人们减少贫困和脆弱性，那么专门用于小额贷款的资金可能会被重新用于改善储蓄方式。与扩大小额信贷项目相比，扩大贫困家庭的小额储蓄可能是一种更简单、成本更低、风险更小的干预措施。它还可以降低许多个人面临的与过度负债相关的风险。这个项目的结果将引起公共机构和捐助者的极大兴趣。

Amongst many development actors and public aid donors it is commonly perceived that the poor cannot escape poverty because they are credit constrained and as such cannot invest. The main reason why they are credit constrained being the lack of collaterals. Microcredit, the practice of lending small amounts of money to the poor, is heralded as a key tool in the fight against poverty in least developed countries (LDCs). It is easy to overlook the fact that what the poor may actually desire is not a loan, but simply the ability to put their savings in a secure and reliable account. In which case the poor's interest could be best served by providing access to an affordable formal saving account (microsavings). Addressing this empirically weak spot, this project will analyse the financial needs of the poor by comparing formal (microcredit and microsavings) and informal financial services. Through a randomized controlled trial in Benin, West Africa, we will test which of these financial instruments is more effective in helping individuals to reduce poverty and vulnerability.Microcredit and microsavings are of great interest given that the vast majority of populations in LDCs have little if no access to formal finance. Most individuals in Benin use informal saving or lending mechanisms; informal due to the lack of any binding legal arrangement. In the absence of formal finance many Beninese resort to rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs). Participation in ROSCAs is costly and no interest is earned. Their members also bear the risk of default by other members, which frequently leads to financial loss and the breakdown of groups. ROSCA members have less flexibility in saving than they would on their own, since the group-determined contribution level is likely to differ from their individual optimal saving rate. Despite these constraints, ROSCAs enjoy popularity and are pervasive in LDCs. One can speculate that access to more secure and reliable formal financial products could lead to significant improvement in people's ability to save and invest and would reduce the impact associated with shocks the poor face on a near daily basis.To carry out our comparative analysis, we will offer access to microcredit and microsavings to different samples of individuals. This will allow to:1) Analyse what drives the demand for these financial devices and enhance our understanding of the poor's motivations for saving and investing. 2) Compare the effectiveness of microcredit vs. microsavings and examine whether formal financial services are more effective in helping individuals to escape poverty than ROSCAs. Our proposal thus directly addresses the Overarching Question 1 of the present Call.3) Investigate subsidiary effects of formal finance on consumption patterns and the use of informal finance. Does formal finance help in reducing expenditures on luxury/frivolous items? Do the poor manage better to avoid falling into a debt trap with or without formal finance? Is formal finance driving people out of ROSCAs?4) Analyse the resulting investments and their sustainability in two crucial dimensions: education and health. These are known to crucially impact long-term poverty.It is well documented that shocks, such as illness and drought, entail severe consequences on poor people's aptitudes to keep a constant path of consumption and investing in human capital. If access to microsavings can better allow people to reduce poverty and vulnerability than can microcredit, moneys earmarked for microloans might be redirected towards improving ways to savings. Scaling up access to microsavings amongst poor households might well represent a simpler, cheaper and less risky intervention compared to scaling up microcredit programs. It could also reduce the risk associated with over-indebtedness faced by many individuals. The results of this project will be of substantial interest for public agencies and donors.