Repayment flexibility can reduce financial stress: a randomized control trial with microfinance clients in India.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Field E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3458929 | biostudies-literature | 2012
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Repayment flexibility can reduce financial stress: a randomized control trial with microfinance clients in India.
Field Erica E Pande Rohini R Papp John J Park Y Jeanette YJ
PloS one 20120926 9
Financial stress is widely believed to cause health problems. However, policies seeking to relieve financial stress by limiting debt levels of poor households may directly worsen their economic well-being. We evaluate an alternative policy - increasing the repayment flexibility of debt contracts. A field experiment randomly assigned microfinance clients to a monthly or a traditional weekly installment schedule (N=200). We used cell phones to gather survey data on income, expenditure, and financi ...[more]
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