Does information provision foster or hinder the effectiveness of microcredit for human capital investments?

提供信息和宣传运动是国际发展中的常用工具，旨在提高对健康等特定主题的认识，以引发行为改变，并产生对相关商品和服务的需求;总体目标是改善人力资本成果。尽管他们的普及，潜在的意想不到的后果，这种通信活动迄今为止还很少研究，拟议的研究旨在通过获得更深入的了解信息提供的作用，阻碍或促进小额信贷的有效性，人力资本投资，以填补这一空白。对小额信贷-向低收入国家家庭提供的小额、通常无抵押贷款-进行了大量研究，并承认其在放宽贫困家庭信贷限制，使其能够投资于创业活动和科普不利事件方面的能力。最近，微额信贷也被证明能有效地促进人力资本投资，特别是预防性保健投资，如蚊帐、供水系统和厕所，支持私营企业在解决社会和环境问题方面发挥越来越大作用的新趋势;并使越来越多的投资者寻求进行能产生重大社会或环境效益的金融投资。小额信贷方案通常通过共同责任确保高额贷款偿还-借款人群体对彼此的贷款负责，从而相互监督。然而，这一特点可能会影响对用于人力资本投资的小额贷款的接受和使用，因为这种投资的财务回报需要时间才能实现，认识到对社会方案存在的认识不足可能会阻碍对这些方案的接受，提高认识运动已成为推出新政策举措的一个重要组成部分。然而，这样的运动通常会传递多个消息，这可能会无意中导致收件人带走的消息，这是相反的计划设计者的意图，这意味着信息运动可能适得其反，阻碍通过人力资本investment.We是在独特的位置，研究这种意想不到的后果和他们的机制，从以前进行的研究中出现了一个有趣的难题。特别是，我们发现，提供信息的同时，小额信贷的人力资本投资（卫生），导致了类似的增加贷款吸收平均为提供卫生小额贷款，但它导致更少的客户使用贷款的家庭厕所，相反，我们最初的假设。首先，通过与提供卫生设施贷款的组织不同的组织开展宣传运动，可能会导致对卫生设施贷款使用情况的同行监督，从而减少建造的厕所。第二，宣传运动可能提高了人们对卫生设施贷款的存在（及其优惠条件）的认识，吸引了那些想为非卫生设施目的贷款的家庭。第三，宣传运动可能无意中阻止家庭使用环卫贷款来进行环卫，例如使他们相信，除非邻居也提供类似的投资，否则他们自己的环卫投资是无效的。我们建议使用混合方法的方法来回答这些问题，结合理论模型，定量数据收集的RCT和定性研究。这种综合方法的主要优点是，它使我们能够对研究结果进行三角测量，从而建立和解释模式、趋势和机制，换句话说，深入研究“是什么”和“为什么”的政策相关问题。

Information provision and awareness campaigns are popular tools in international development, aiming to raise knowledge on particular topics, such as health, in order to trigger behaviour change, and to generate demand for related goods and services; with the overall aim of improving human capital outcomes. Despite their popularity, potential unintended consequences of such communication activities have to date been little studied.The proposed research is designed to contribute to filling this gap by gaining a deeper understanding of the role of information provision in hindering, or fostering the effectiveness of microcredit for human capital investments. Microcredit - small, usually collateral-free loans given to households in low-income countries - has been much studied and their ability in relaxing poor households' credit constraints to allow them to invest in entrepreneurial activities and cope with adverse events acknowledged. More recently, microcredit has also been shown to be effective in fostering human capital investments particularly preventive health investments such as bednets, water connections and toilets, supporting the emerging trends of private enterprises increasingly taking a role in solving social and environmental problems; and in growing numbers of investors seeking to make financial investments that produce significant social or environmental benefits. Microcredit programs often ensure high loan repayment through joint liability - groups of borrowers are liable for each other's loans, and thus monitor each other. However, this feature could influence the take-up and use of microloans for human capital investments, since financial returns to such investments take time to be realised.Acknowledging that poor awareness of the existence of social programs could hinder take-up of these programs, awareness creation campaigns have become an essential component of the roll-out of new policy initiatives. However, such campaigns typically deliver multiple messages, which could inadvertently lead to recipients taking away a message that is contrary to that intended by the program designers, implying that information campaigns could backfire and hinder the adoption of human capital investments.We are in the unique position to research such unintended consequence and their mechanisms by building on an interesting puzzle that emerged from a previously conducted study. In particular, we found that providing information alongside microcredit for human capital investment (sanitation), led to a similar increase in loan uptake on average as the provision of sanitation microloans only, but it resulted in fewer clients using the loan for household toilets, contrary to our original hypothesis.We intend to explore three channels that could explain this puzzling finding. First, the delivery of the information campaign - through a different organisation from that providing the sanitation loans - might have how peer monitoring of sanitation loan use occurred, resulting in fewer toilets being built. Second, the information campaign might have increased awareness about the existence of the sanitation loans (and their favourable conditions), attracting households who wanted to borrow for a non-sanitation purpose. Third, the information campaign could have unintentionally discouraged households from using sanitation loans for sanitation, by making them believe, for instance that their own sanitation investments would be ineffective unless accompanied by similar investments from their neighbours. We propose to answer these questions using a mixed-methods approach, combining a theoretical model, with quantitative data collected within the RCT and qualitative research. The key advantage of this combined approach is that it allows us to triangulate the research findings and hence to establish and explain patterns, trends, and mechanisms, in other words dig into the policy relevant questions of 'what' and 'why'.