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Field
Trial Title
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Before
Improving the evidence on the impact of Microfinance: An experimental study of Microfinance-Plus interventions in three countries
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After
Improving the evidence on the impact of Microfinance: An experimental study of Microfinance interventions in three countries
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Field
Abstract
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Before
Microfinance has a long and complicated history with policy makers and researchers. Many initial proponents argued that lack of access to formal finance was a critical part of why people remained poor in developing countries. However, initial reviews of impacts did not show transformative changes for people beyond a few anecdotal stories. The large promises of microfinance solving world poverty were not panning out. Decades after the beginning of the microfinance movement, there is still little conclusive evidence on the impact of microfinance on the lives of the poor. A recent exploration of experimental studies of microfinance by Dahal and Fiala (2020) shows that most studies suffer from serious power and design issues. These issues are so large that it is not possible to draw meaningful conclusions about the impact of microfinance, either for or against. This project plans to address these issues by conducting experimental tests of microfinance-plus programming in three countries. The microfinance institutions in our study are mission-driven, client-centric institutions that practice strong poverty outreach and client-protection, while nevertheless striving for financial viability. The study will seek to improve on the design of previous experiments in several ways. However, the main goal will be to increase statistical power. The study will employ a third-party subscription model to identify potential microfinance clients before a baseline survey is conducted. This design is expected to substantially improve take-up differentials between treatment and control communities.
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After
Microfinance has a long and complicated history with policy makers and researchers. Many initial proponents argued that lack of access to formal finance was a critical part of why people remained poor in developing countries. However, initial reviews of impacts did not show transformative changes for people beyond a few anecdotal stories. The large promises of microfinance solving world poverty were not panning out. Decades after the beginning of the microfinance movement, there is still little conclusive evidence on the impact of microfinance on the lives of the poor. A recent exploration of experimental studies of microfinance by Dahal and Fiala (2020) shows that most studies suffer from serious power and design issues. These issues are so large that it is not possible to draw meaningful conclusions about the impact of microfinance, either for or against. This project plans to address these issues by conducting experimental tests of microfinance programming in three countries. The microfinance institutions in our study are mission-driven, client-centric institutions that practice strong poverty outreach and client-protection, while nevertheless striving for financial viability. The study will seek to improve on the design of previous experiments in several ways. However, the main goal will be to increase statistical power. The study will employ a third-party subscription model to identify potential microfinance clients before a baseline survey is conducted. This design is expected to substantially improve take-up differentials between treatment and control communities.
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Field
Last Published
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Before
April 23, 2021 09:53 AM
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After
January 03, 2022 04:03 AM
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Employment, income, and food security
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After
Income, consumption and asset ownership
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Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
176 clusters (Myanmar)
165 clusters (Paraguay)
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After
176 clusters (Myanmar)
165 clusters (Paraguay)
250 clusters (Uganda)
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
2711 respondents (Myanmar)
2035 respondents (Paraguay)
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After
2711 respondents (Myanmar)
2035 respondents (Paraguay)
3824 respondent (Uganda)
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Field
Keyword(s)
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Before
Finance
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After
Finance
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
subjective resilience, subjective wellbeing, business resilience, farming resilience, safety nets and usage of savings during COVID-19, amount of household savings, spousal income, investments in the business or farm and poverty likelihood
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After
see PAP
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Field
Building on Existing Work
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Before
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After
No
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