IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/afrpps/v69y2009i1p67-87.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are the poor really more trustworthy? A micro‐lending experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Jaclyn D. Kropp
  • Calum G. Turvey
  • David R. Just
  • Rong Kong
  • Pei Guo

Abstract

Purpose - This paper aims to clarify the relationship between wealth and trustworthiness with the goal of understanding why micro‐lending institutions grant loans to poor individuals countering well‐known models of credit markets and credit rationing, such as those proposed by Stiglitz and Weiss. Micro‐credit markets appear to be based on two conjectures: the poor are trustworthy, and their willingness to pay for credit is relatively high. Design/methodology/approach - The paper simulates trust‐based lending in an experimental setting to determine whether the conjecture that the poor are trustworthy is plausible. By conducting the experiments in the USA, a wealthy developed country, and China, a developing country where formal micro‐finance institutions have not established a visible presence, it is possible to test the conjecture and draw cross‐cultural comparisons. Findings - The paper finds that while the absolute level of family income had no significant effect on repayment behavior, US borrowers that perceived themselves as having a family income that was relatively lower than other US households repaid at higher rates. Therefore, evidence was found that trustworthiness might be a function of perceived relative wealth or social status rather than the absolute level of wealth or income. Research limitations/implications - The research results may be difficult to generalize because of the experimental approach and use of students as participants. Practical implications - The paper includes implications for the administration of micro‐credit loans in China and other developing nations. Originality/value - This paper experimentally tests a conjecture which appears to be the foundation of micro‐credit markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaclyn D. Kropp & Calum G. Turvey & David R. Just & Rong Kong & Pei Guo, 2009. "Are the poor really more trustworthy? A micro‐lending experiment," Agricultural Finance Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 69(1), pages 67-87, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:afrpps:v:69:y:2009:i:1:p:67-87
    DOI: 10.1108/00021460910960471
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00021460910960471/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00021460910960471/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/00021460910960471?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Turvey, Calum G. & He, Guangwen & MA, Jiujie & Kong, Rong & Meagher, Patrick, 2012. "Farm credit and credit demand elasticities in Shaanxi and Gansu," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 1020-1035.
    2. Edward L. Glaeser & David I. Laibson & José A. Scheinkman & Christine L. Soutter, 2000. "Measuring Trust," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 811-846.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Laibson, David I. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Soutter, Christine L., 2000. "Measuring Trust," Scholarly Articles 4481497, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    3. Hering, I. & Mußhoff, O., 2016. "Dynamic Incentives in Microfinance – What about the Farmers?," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 51, March.
    4. Jiguang Wang & Bing Ran, 2019. "Balancing Paradoxical Missions: How Does Microfinance Rebuild a Sustainable Path in Poverty Alleviation?," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(2), pages 21582440198, June.
    5. Kamaluddin, Amrizah & Hadi, Nabawiyah Abdul & Alam, Md. Mahmudul & Adil, Mohamed Azam Mohamed, 2019. "Social Collateral Model for Islamic Microfinance," SocArXiv ya8ft, Center for Open Science.
    6. Weber, Ron & Musshoff, Oliver, 2012. "Microfinance for agricultural firms - What can we learn from bank data?," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126708, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:afrpps:v:69:y:2009:i:1:p:67-87. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.