Policy Briefs on Financial Access

What is the impact of microcredit, microsavings, and microinsurance? How can we help facilitate access to credit and savings services? How can microfinance reach the ultra-poor?  What are the optimal design features of successful savings and credit products?

Innovations for Poverty Action, as part of the Financial Access Initiative, is dedicated to answering questions like these.  And when our researchers begin to find answers, we are dedicated to sharing them.  Below you will find links to a series of Research Briefs, one-page summaries of publications by IPA Research Affiliates.

What is the impact of providing access to credit in slums in Hyderabad, India?

• The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, and Cynthia Kinnan
(read the original paper here)

What is the impact of providing access to credit to microentrepreneurs in Manila, Philippines?

• Expanding Micro-Enterprise Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts in Manila

Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman
(read the original paper here)

Can a commitment savings account help people quit smoking?

• Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract for Smoking Cessation

Xavier Giné, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman
(read the original paper here)

Why don't more farmers grow potentially profitable export crops?

• Finding Missing Markets (and a Disturbing Epilogue): Evidence from an Export Crop Adoption & Marketing Intervention in Kenya

Nava Ashraf, Xavier Giné, and Dean Karlan
(read the original paper here)

When consumers choose whether or not to borrow, how much does marketing matter?

• What's Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment

Marianne Bertrand, Dean Karlan, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir, and Jonathan Zinman
(read the original paper here)

Can we trust survey respondents to tell the truth about taking out loans?

• Lying About Borrowing

Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman
(read the original paper here)

Do riskier borrowers agree to higher interest rate loans, or does the high interest rate encourage borrowers to default once they have the loan?

• Observing Unobservables: Identifying Information Assymetries with a Consumer Credit Field Experiment

Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman
(read the original paper here)