The lack of proper enforcement mechanism for sovereign debt generates a commitment failure. As a result, a sovereign may seek to improve its position in debt renegotiations and thus evade its debt obligations by reducing exports. Conditionality seeks to provide a solution to the incentive problem by addressing the commitment failure. Formalizing this argument, we show that conditionality helps ...

Theories rationalizing joint liability lending are rich in implications for repayment rates. We exploit this fact to test four diverse models. We show that the models’ repayment implications do not always coincide. For example, higher correlation of output and borrowers’ ability to act cooperatively can raise or lower repayment, depending on the model. Data from Thai borrowing groups suggest th...

How do borrowers respond to improvements a lender’s ability to punish defaulters? We implemented a randomized field experiment in Malawi examining the impact of fingerprinting of borrowers, which improves the lender’s ability to withhold future loans from individuals who have previously defaulted. Study participants were smallholder farmers applying for agricultural input loans, and were random...

due to the probabilistic nature and uncertainties of structural parameters, reliability-based optimization will enable engineers to account for the safety of the structures and allow for its decision making applicability. thus, reliability-based design will substitute deterministic rules of codes of practice. space structures are of those types that have an exceedingly high range of applicabili...

background: renal failure is an important adverse effect of drug poisoning. determining the prevalence and etiology of this serious side effect could help us find appropriate strategies for the prevention of renal failure in most affected patients. objectives: the present study is aimed to identify drugs that induce renal failure and also to find the prevalence of renal failure in patients refe...

Recent evidence suggests heterogenous impacts of microfinance loans, with limited average effects on enterprise growth among the poor. One possibility is that the rigidity of the classic microcredit contract – widely held to be important for reducing default – inhibits investment in microenterprises. To explore these trade-offs, we provide experimental estimates of the consequences for client r...