Latest findings from randomized evaluations of microfinance

By Jonathan Bauchet, C. Marshall, L. Starita, Jean-Philippe Thomas, Anna Yalouris. 2011

134 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper summarizes the latest research findings from a new body of empirical evidence that uses randomized evaluations, similar to those used in medical trials, to compare how one group responds to access to specific new financial services against how a comparable group fares without those services. This paper goes back a couple of years to the first studies that used this approach, and summarizes a series of research studies presented at the October 2010 microfinance impact and innovation conference in New York. These studies evaluated product design for a range of financial services, including credit, savings, and insurance. The studies discussed here were undertaken by research affiliates of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), the Financial Access Initiative (FAI), and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; they are all randomized evaluations unless otherwise specified. Part one of this paper reviews the main results from randomized evaluations that measure the impact of microcredit and micro savings on business investment and creation, consumption, and household well-being. Part two presents evidence from evaluations of products and delivery design. Part three discusses the evidence on micro insurance products.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Safety Research, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/deafe0c4cd9779995088ddf0438f127486f21a48

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Maria Abascal
2. Tilman Ehrbeck
3. Nina Holle
4. Eustadius Francis Magezi
5. Y. Nakano
6. C. Verde
7. Robert J. Cull
8. Delia Baldassarri

In Safety Research

1. Maria Abascal
2. Eustadius Francis Magezi
3. Y. Nakano
4. Robert J. Cull
5. Delia Baldassarri

In Soil Science

1. Y. Nakano
2. Robert J. Cull

Citations in the corpus

• The impact of microcredit on agricultural technology adoption and productivity: Evidence from randomized control trial in Tanzania (2020, background): “See Bauchet et al. (2011) for a review on the impact microfinance including microinsurance and microsavings.”
• Financial inclusion and development : recent impact evidence (2014, background): “…(some 25 cited in this overview), the general thrust of this new body of evidence suggests that financial services do have a positive impact on a variety of microeconomic indicators, including self-employment business activities, household consumption, and wellbeing (Bauchet et al. 2011).”
• Field experiments across the social sciences (2017, background): “However, access to credit does have an effect on the overall household welfare, by changing the way in which money is spent (Bauchet et al. 2011).”
• INVESTING IN THE SDGs: AN ACTION PLAN (2014, background): “However, other studies also indicate that there has been limited impact on health care, education and female empowerment (Bauchet et al 2011; Bateman and Chang 2012).”