Roth, Benjamin N. →

What Would It Take to Unlock Microfinance's Full Potential?

Microfinance has been seen as a vehicle for economic mobility in developing countries, but the results have been mixed. Research by Natalia Rigol and Ben Roth probes how different lending approaches might serve entrepreneurs better.

India’s Food Supply Chain During the Pandemic

Policy makers in the developing world face important tradeoffs in reacting to a pandemic. The quick and complete recovery of India’s food supply chain suggests that strict lockdown measures at the onset of pandemics need not cause long-term economic damage.

Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in the Field

Based on a field experiment involving 1,345 microentrepreneurs in India, this study provides insight into the depth and breadth of social knowledge contained in rural and peri-urban social networks. Harnessing community information directly from a microentrepreneur’s peers helps to identify high-growth microentrepreneurs and predict their returns to capital.

Contractual Restrictions and Debt Traps

Microfinance has failed to catalyze entrepreneurship in developing countries, despite abundant evidence of high return on investment opportunities. What can account for this? This study presents a theory in which firms that borrow from an informal lender may see their growth stalled and remain in the relationship indefinitely, even though they would have continued to grow in the absence of a lender.

How Social Entrepreneurs Can Increase Their Investment Impact

Grants or investments? Philanthropic organizations have multiple funding tools available, but choosing the wrong one can dilute the benefits, according to research by Benjamin N. Roth. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Free Riding in Loan Approvals: Evidence From SME Lending in Peru

Using data from a large Peruvian bank trying to expand credit access to small and medium enterprises, this study shows that competing lenders use one another’s loan approvals as an input into their own approval process. Such “free riding” has great impact on market outcomes and might warrant policy intervention.

Impact Investing: A Theory of Financing Social Entrepreneurship

The author provides a formal definition of organizational sustainability and characterizes the situations in which a social enterprise should be sustainable. The analysis then delineates when an investment in a social enterprise delivers superior impact to a grant.

Debt Traps? Market Vendors and Moneylender Debt in India and the Philippines

Small-scale entrepreneurs throughout the developing world often rely on moneylenders for working capital but at exorbitant interest rates. Results of three experiments involving market vendors in India and the Philippines show the difficulty that small-scale entrepreneurs face in escaping usage of moneylender debt.