Micro-credit, Financial Access, and Growth

在总体水平上，金融市场发展与增长率之间存在着公认的联系。从事发展中国家金融市场研究的经济学家也广泛调查了金融安排如何影响家庭和企业，特别是由于交易成本和信息限制而产生的契约和市场摩擦如何限制穷人的借贷机会，甚至可能导致贫困陷阱。然而，我们对微观和宏观画面之间联系的理解仍然有限。决策者和非政府组织，特别是以小额金融机构为幌子的非政府组织，坚决支持扩大融资作为提高生产力和促进体制变革的手段，特别是在低收入环境中增加企业家精神和增长。然而，要使这些战略蓬勃发展并发挥作用，它们需要一些工具来了解延长信贷的其他战略的影响。为此，增加了对小额信贷的评价研究。此外，还有一些随机对照试验，这些试验要么改变小额信贷的渠道，要么改变小额信贷的形式。但到目前为止，调查结果好坏参半。在不同国家进行的随机试验的结果表明，小额信贷对开办小企业有积极作用，但有些令人沮丧的是，它对减少贫困或增长往往没有统计上的显著影响。与此同时，人们越来越担心竞争和营利性组织地位对小额信贷行业的影响。鉴于目前的知识和证据状况，我们仍然无法在这些研究的基础上提供明确的政策指导。本项目采用不完善信贷市场中的金融合同模型，探讨与改善低收入环境中融资渠道有关的一系列问题。研究的重点是了解改善信贷获取的技术如何影响生产力和福利。该方法将侧重于实际和潜在企业家之间的财富和生产力分配如何影响不同环境下的融资，例如包括竞争如何影响结果。它提供了了解实地金融合同与总体结果之间联系的工具，也是解释评价研究结果的手段。我们提出的模型可以使用一系列经验估计来校准数据。新研究有五个主要方向：(i)了解不同的借贷技术，贷款人对金融合同的选择及其对借款人的影响（ii）研究金融组织设计和竞争环境的影响（iii）探索信贷市场政策的总体影响（iii）研究创业精神和融资渠道（iv）探索信贷市场摩擦如何创造贫困陷阱。研究结果将有助于制定信贷市场政策和小额信贷机构的业务战略。我们与总部位于加尔各答的小额信贷机构Bandhan的合作，将使我们能够探索如何根据特定小额信贷机构的需求定制我们开发的工具，并将其整合到他们关于客户和项目所在地的数据库中。该提案将旨在建立学术机构和班丹的工作人员使用和开发这些工具的能力。与Bandhan的合作也将使我们能够开展需要新数据收集的研究项目。这将在经济模型和现场经验之间产生一种来回的关系。同样重要的是，我们的研究将提出一个指导信贷市场政策选择的框架。作为一项政策工具，它使人们能够审查其他干预措施。

There is a well-established link between financial market development and growth rates at the aggregate level. Economists working on financial markets in developing countries have also investigated extensively how financial arrangements affect households and businesses, particularly how contracting and market frictions due to transactions costs and informational constraints may limit borrowing opportunities of the poor and can even lead to poverty traps. However, our understanding of the link between the micro and macro pictures remains limited. Policy makers and NGOs, particularly in the guise of micro-finance institutions (MFIs) are squarely behind the need to extend finance as a means of raising productivity and fostering institutional change, particularly to increase entrepreneurship and growth in low-income environments. However, for such strategies to flourish and to be effective, they need the tools to understand the impact of alternative strategies for extending credit. To aid this there has been an increase in evaluation studies of micro-finance. In addition, there have been some randomized-control trials which either vary access to micro-finance or the form that it takes. But so far the findings have been mixed. The results from randomized trials in various countries suggest that microfinance has a positive effect in starting small businesses, but somewhat discouragingly, it often does not have a statistically significant effect on poverty reduction or growth. At the same time there have been rising concerns about the effects of competition and for-profit organisational status for the microfinance industry. Given the current state of knowledge and evidence, we are still some way short of being able to offer clear-cut policy guidance based on these studies. This project uses a model of financial contracts in imperfect credit markets to explore a range of issues relevant to the improving access to finance in low income environments. The focus of the research is on understanding how technologies which improve credit access affect productivity and welfare. The approach will focus on how the wealth and productivity distribution among actual and potential entrepreneurs affects take-up of finance in different environments including, for example, how competition affects outcomes. It provides a vehicle for understanding the links between financial contracts on the ground and aggregate outcomes as well a means of interpreting the results from evaluation studies. The model that we propose can be calibrated to the data using a range of empirical estimates. There are five main directions of new research: (i) understanding different lending technologies, the lenders' choice of financial contracts and their implications for borrowers (ii) looking at financial organization design and the effect of the competitive context (iii) exploring the aggregate effects from credit market policies (iii) looking at entrepreneurship and access to finance (iv) exploring how credit market frictions can create poverty traps.The output of the research will be useful in shaping credit market policies and the business strategies of MFIs. Our collaboration with Bandhan, an MFI based in Kolkata, will allow us to explore how the tools that we developed can be tailored to the needs of a specific MFI and integrated into the data bases that they have on their clients and locations of projects. The proposal will aim to build the capacity of staff in academic institutions and in Bandhan to use the tools and develop them. The cooperation with Bandhan will also allow us to undertake research projects which require new data collection. This will create a back-and-forth between the economic modelling and field experience. Equally importantly, our research will put forth a framework to guide the choice of credit market policies. As a tool for a policy, it enables alternative interventions to be examined.