Research Activities

Research Projects 2024

Formal Financial Market and Informal Lending under Economic Shocks: Experimental Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

Outline

Risk-sharing has been practiced in rural areas of developing countries through informal money lending.

Recently, there has been an ongoing debate on whether microcredit increases or decreases informal money lending and borrowing, but no conclusion has been reached.

In this study, we conduct a quantitative analysis based on a randomized controlled trial of how the expansion of microcredit has affected informal money lending among residents and discuss its consistency with previous studies.

Next, we consider economic shocks, such as weather-induced droughts, and identify the role of formal financial markets and informal money lending (substitutability and complementarity) when poor landless farmers experience economic shocks.

Period

April 2024 - March 2026

Members
Role Member
[ Organizer ] Matsuura, Masanori
[ Co-researcher ] Abu Hayat Md. Saiful Islam(Bangladesh Agricultural University Professor)
[ Co-researcher ] Narayan Das(BRAC Institute of Governance and Development Senior Research Fellow)

*Affiliations are as of April 2024.

Expected Outcome
  • Paper Submission to Peer-Reviewed Journal