Microcredit Works #
I was convinced some time ago, but for those who weren’t there’s new evidence that even the stingiest microlenders have a positive effect:
ZaFinCo was no dewy-eyed social business, but a hard-nosed, profit-minded company, charging 11.75 per cent per month on a four-month loan, or 200 per cent APR, much more than Compartamos was generally judged to have been charging.
Despite the high rates, the results were astonishing. “We expected to see some good effects and some bad,” explained Karlan, who checked in with the experiment’s participants six to 12 months after they had filed their initial loan applications. “But we basically only saw good effects.”
Most strikingly, those “treated” by the experiment - that is, those for whom the computer requested a second chance at a loan - were much more likely to have kept their jobs than the control group. They were also much less likely to have dropped below the poverty line or to have gone hungry. All these outcomes were recorded well after the loan had been taken out and (usually) repaid, so this was not measuring a temporary debt-funded binge.
(via MR)