Monday, June 30, 2014

Trapped in scarcity

This post appeared in Dutch on the Oikocredit Netherlands website.

The book Scarcity by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir had been on my to-do list for months. I kept postponing reading it. Even though it seemed important, it wasn’t high on my list of priorities. I had deadlines: finishing a paper, preparing a presentation or... finishing my next blog post.



I wanted to read the book because it talks about the psychology of poverty. I have been fortunate enough never to have lived in poverty, and it is therefore hard for me to imagine how it must be. That’s why I travel to developing countries, do research and read books about development issues. After a busy period, I finally had time to read Scarcity last week. And? It turns out that my busy existence and a life in poverty are not as different as I thought.

Mullainathan and Shafir show that people who are poor, busy or on a diet, all deal with the same problem: scarcity. Scarcity of money, time or calories. Scarcity requires our full attention and distracts us from other important aspects of our lives: a poor mother is late for work, a busy manager forgets his daughter’s birthday, a student on a diet cannot focus on her exam.

People living with scarcity cannot think about much else. That has serious consequences: their cognitive skills suffer. A study among farmers in India shows that their IQ score is ten points higher after harvest – when there is plenty of money – than before harvest – when they are penniless. People also start behaving differently as a result of scarcity: they find it hard to resist temptations, snap at people around them and forget appointments.

I can definitely recognise these symptoms: in a busy period I sometimes forget everything around me. But I differ from a poor person in one crucial way: for me there is a way out. In the worst case I am late for a deadline or have to cancel a meeting. I can choose not to be busy, but someone who is poor is trapped.

‘Poverty traps’ have been an important topic in development economics for decades. Why can’t people escape poverty? Many explanations have been offered: poor people are not intelligent enough, live to close to the equator or live in countries with messed up political systems. Mullainathan and Shafir offer an interesting contribution to this discussion: scarcity creates a vicious circle and pulls poor people further into poverty.

As opposed to many other explanations, this explanation gives hope: poor people are not poor because of who they are, but because of their circumstances. Scarcity creates behaviour that makes poor people even poorer. A mother is fired because she cannot focus on her job, she gets a fine for being late on her electricity bill or she forgets to fill out a form that could get her child into a scholarship programme. Simple changes can make her life easier: early reminders for paying bills, insurance against financial shocks or assistance with filling out complicated forms.

What about me? What can I do to make my busy life easier? I’ll think about that later, I have a deadline to make...

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Does microcredit work?

This post appeared in Dutch on the Oikocredit Netherlands website.

In 2010 I travelled across Uganda to visit microcredit projects. I met inspiring people with remarkable stories. Violet, for example, opened a primary school with the help of a loan. Microcredit seemed to be a big succession of triumphs. Nevertheless, something was gnawing away inside of me. What about borrowers that failed to use their loan successfully? And wouldn’t entrepreneurial types like Violet manage to succeed regardless, even without a microcredit? In other words: Does microcredit work?

Three students from Violet's primary school

One way to answer this question is doing a ‘randomized controlled trial’ (RCT). The concept is simple and well known from medical experiments: one group receives the treatment – a microcredit – and another group gets nothing. By comparing the two groups, you learn about the effect of the treatment. A crucial aspect of this method is the random selection of individuals. By doing this you avoid so-called ‘selection bias’. For example, imagine that microcredit clients have more entrepreneurial qualities than ‘normal’ people. It is likely that those with a microcredit will have more success, but to what extent can we assign this to the loan?

Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee are the uncrowned monarchs of the ‘randomistas’, the researchers that focus on RCTs. In The miracle of microfinance?, Duflo, Banerjee and co-authors study the effect of a new microcredit program in Hyderabad, India. The results? Borrowers invest more in their business, but these investments do not lead to a decrease in poverty. Although income does not rise, money is being spent differently: microcredit clients buy less ‘temptation goods’, such as lottery tickets and cigarettes, and more durable goods, such as fridges and television sets. Other studies arrive at similar conclusions: there are positive effects, but microcredit does not seem to be the silver bullet in the heart of poverty.

But: there is not only one type of microcredit. Loans vary in size, duration and interest rate. Some loans are given to groups, others to individuals. So, instead of asking “Does microcredit work?”, we should ask “Which microcredit works?” The research on this question is ongoing, but there are already some interesting results. For instance, Lars Berge and coauthors found that microcredit works better if it’s combined with business training (link). Training does not only teach entrepreneurs how to run their business, it can also help them to find out whether their idea has potential in the first place.

After all, not everyone is a successful entrepreneur like Violet. And not everyone needs to be. As businesses grow, they create jobs for those who are less entrepreneurial. That is exactly why the Violets of this world should have access to credit, and why their loan should be designed in a way that maximises impact. With a microcredit loan in their pockets, entrepreneurs can fight against poverty in their country. 

Want to know more about RCTs?
  • Poor Economics – The book by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee about RCTs in developing countries. (Amazon.com, website of the book)
  • Ted talk by Esther Duflo – Esther Duflo talks about why she believes that RCTs can be used to fight poverty. (link)