Housing Microfinance and Climate Resilience in the Philippines

Last registered on May 03, 2022

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Housing Microfinance and Climate Resilience in the Philippines

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0009124

Initial registration date

May 02, 2022

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

May 03, 2022, 9:48 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Philippines

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Russell Toth

Affiliation

University of Sydney

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Russell Toth

PI Affiliation

University of Sydney

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Teevrat Garg

PI Affiliation

University of California - San Diego

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Ricardo Dahis

PI Affiliation

PUC-Rio

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2022-05-16

End date

2023-06-30

Keywords

Environment & Energy, Finance & Microfinance

Additional Keywords

housing microfinance, climate resilience, consumer education, risk perceptions

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Low-income households in the Philippines lack sufficient access to affordable and resilient housing to protect them from the physical and economic damages brought by increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as typhoons and floods. We partner with a large microfinance NGO and an NGO focused on housing for low-income households, to evaluate a new housing microfinance product. We will run a 2x2 randomized evaluation that cross-randomizes the education component (versus no education) and the new housing loan terms (versus being offered the old housing loan terms), against a control group. The main outcomes are short-term impacts on perceptions of climate risk and resilience, knowledge and plans for house construction, and other measures of resilience. The study will create new knowledge about how to support low-income households in obtaining housing that is resilient to extreme weather events, which is relevant across a number of developing countries that are vulnerable to climate change.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Dahis, Ricardo et al. 2022. "Housing Microfinance and Climate Resilience in the Philippines." AEA RCT Registry. May 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9124-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The interventions are a new pilot loan product that features increased loan amount and loan tenure, and high-touch consumer education on building resilient houses.

Intervention Start Date

2022-05-16

Intervention End Date

2022-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

There are four areas of primary outcomes: (1) loan usage, (2) climate resilience of dwelling, (3) climate resilience of households, and (4) economic outcomes such income, expenditure and savings.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We will run a 2x2 randomized evaluation that cross-randomizes the education component (versus no education) and the new loan terms (versus being offered the old loan terms), against a control group.

Experimental Design Details

We will work with 12 selected ASA branches (each serves over 1,000 clients), as our partners pilot test the interventions prior to scale-up across all branches. Randomization will be at client group level, stratified by loan officer. We will randomize 720 client groups and randomly divide them into four treatment arms, stratified by branch and loan officer:
Control (0): no product is marketed
Treatment (1): market new loan with education
Treatment (2): market new loan without education
Treatment (3): market old loan with education
Treatment (4): market old loan without education

To measure outcomes, we will
1. Obtain administrative data on loan outcomes.
2. Conduct a brief, written mini-survey offered to all clients in the study branches. This will focus on core climate risk and resilience outcomes, and also be used to quantify the correlates of loan demand.
3. Conduct one end line phone survey. We will survey a maximum of 1,000 housing loan takers on a rolling basis, at least 3 months after loan disbursement. We will proportionally survey a random sample of non-loan takers and those in the control group, also on a rolling basis. For example, if there are 100 loan takers during the first month, we will survey these 100 loan takers, and a random selection of 50 non-loan takers and 50 people from the control group. If a surveyed non-loan taker becomes a loan taker in a later month, we will survey one additional non-loan taker as replacement.

Randomization Method

Randomization will be done by computer using Stata.

Randomization Unit

Randomization will be at the microfinance client-group level (720), stratified by loan officer (70).

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

720 microfinance client groups, across 12 MFI branches and 70 loan officers.

Sample size: planned number of observations

On average each client group has about 25 clients, so the eligible population has about (720 client groups) x (25 clients) = 18,000 clients. We will obtain administrative data on all of these clients, and mini-survey data on all who agree to respond. We plan to survey 2000 of these ASA clients, through a phone survey: -1000 loan takers across treatment arms, where loan takers are successively surveyed as they take up the loans, at least 3 months after they first take up the loan. Once any treatment arm reaches 250 surveyed, we will stop surveying loan takers from that arm. -500 randomly-selected non-loan takers across treatment groups, evenly selected at 125 per group. These will be surveyed so the survey timing balances with the loan taker group. Since a non-loan taker could later become a loan taker, we will randomly replace any respondents who later attrit from this group by taking up a loan. -500 randomly selected clients in the pure control group. These will be surveyed so the survey timing balances with the loan taker group.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Each treatment arm, and the control, have 144 clients groups.

This leads to the following number of observations per treatment arm:
Administrative data and mini-survey: up to (144 client groups) x (about 25 per group) = 3,600 per arm.
Phone survey:
-Treatment arms: up to 250 loan takers + up to 125 non-loan takers = up to 375
-Control arm: 500

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB