Disclaimer The analysis and conclusions of this document are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the official position of the AFD or its partner institutions. Foreword The " Impact Analyses " series aims to comprise works resulting from impact evaluations, and more largely, retrospective analyses of final results obtained in the framework of development policies or interventio...

This paper presents a new methodological framework for measuring the level of household access to credit. It provides an analytical framework for examining the determinants of household credit limits and derives implications on information needed to examine the extent to which households are credit constrained. Empirical application of this method involves directly eliciting credit limit inform...

A conceptual framework for analyzing the credit rationing and the link between credit access and profitability is developed. The empirical analysis using data from manufacturing firms in Bulgaria, provides direct estimates of credit rationing and its impact on profitability in transition economies. The results from the switching regression suggest that the presence of credit market constraints ...

This paper shows that access to finance is the crucial factor in explaining the link between the historical African slave trade and current GDP. We show: (1) The slave trade is strongly linked to current firm access to finance; (2) Among all the business obstacles a firm faces, the slave trade affects only access to finance; and (3) The slave trade erodes access to both formal credit and the tr...

Many policymakers and some behavioral models hold that restricting access to expensive credit helps consumers by preventing overborrowing. I examine some short-run effects of restricting access, using household panel survey data on payday loan users collected around the imposition of binding restrictions on payday loan terms in Oregon. The results suggest that borrowing fell in Oregon relative ...

Improving access to capital for low wealth households is a vital part of any rural development strategy, especially one designed to rectify long standing rural inequality and to generate broadly-based growth. In addition, there may be further benefits from specifically targeting the capital needs of rural and low-income women. Most credit programs oriented to increase access to credit for poor ...

This paper presents novel evidence on the role of credit scores in the dynamics of committed relationships. We document substantial positive assortative matching with respect to credit scores, even when controlling for other socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. As a result, individual-level differences in access to credit are largely preserved at the household level. Moreover, we find...

We use recent farm household survey data from 5 Central European countries to explore the extent to which ill-functioning land and credit markets may present an obstacle to rural development. The first finding is that improved access to credit can, indeed, make a contribution to a more dynamic rural sector. A considerable share of rural households express their desire to expand agricultural cul...

In this paper constraints on technology choice and credit access are introduced into the Melitz (2003) model in a dynamic setting in order to explain the factors that limit the benefits to a firm from trade liberalization. Theoretical analysis shows that firms face credit constraints depending on their initial productivity and the cost of the credit. As a result, credit constrained firms may ne...

This article examines the unequal distribution of credit and credit subsidies in the Brazilian agricultural sector from 1969 to 1990. Total credit subsidies exceeded US$ 40 billion in this period. The distribution across crops is studied econometrically. After controlling for area, the crops that benefited most had superior access to credit institutions, were tradeable, had high prices, and wer...