This paper proposes novel identification techniques to examine the trade-offs that microfinance institutions face between increasing their profits and their social impact. It uses a quantile regression approach to examine how these trade-offs evolve as institutions become more commercialized. The identification strategy is based on an instrumental variable approach, and also leverages the heteroskedasticity in the sample. The findings indicate that increasing outreach to women, a common proxy for social impact, has a positive effect on the financial performance of all institutions across different stages of commercialization. This suggests that there is no trade-off between doing well and doing good. However, the price differential that microfinance institutions can maintain with respect to their competitors becomes more important for them as they become more commercialized. If this price differential is not explained by a better quality of the services provided, this result questions whether microfinance institutions that have reached a high level of commercialization can still do well and do good. The results are robust to potential sample selection biases, and are consistent for different measures of financial performance.
We conduct an impact evaluation of the minimum wage legislation for domestic workers that was introduced in four states in India over the period of 2004-2012. Combining the matching and difference-in-difference estimation strategies we estimate both the short-run and long-run impacts of the legislation on real wages and on employment opportunities. Our results show a positive impact of the legislation on real wages in the short-run, albeit of very small magnitude.However, the legislation seems to have no impact on real wages in the long-run. Further, the legislation did not seem to have had any impact on the extensive margin in terms of employment opportunities or the probability of being employed as a domestic worker in both the short and long run. Our conclusion is that minimum wage legislation for domestic workers need not improve the living standards of workers unless accompanied by strong enforcement mechanisms. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt at quantitatively evaluating the impact of minimum wage legislation for domestic workers in India.
A growing share of the world population is getting access to a formal bank account. This allows a move from cash to account based payments. Grounding our hypothesis in behavioral economics, we conjecture that being paid on an account instead of in cash can play a major role in encouraging savings. When paid on the account, the money is saved by default, while - as long as payments are done in cash - the money is ready to be spent. We test our hypothesis in rural India, with villagers who either had an account, or were asked to open one. They received weekly payments of Rs 150 for about 10 consecutive weeks. We randomly allocated them to being paid on the account (treated) or in cash (control). We found that the treatment increases the account balance by about 110 percent, and that the effect is long lasting. The control villagers do not save more in other assets, but increase their expendi- tures on regular consumption items. We exclude two alternative mechanisms that could explain the result. First, using lab in the field games, we show that the treatment does not enhance the trust in or empathy towards the banker. Second, we provide evidence against the treated having developed an active savings habit on the account: they behave like the control, when we switch from account to cash payments.
This paper develops a model with sequential production stages and international trade frictions that permits an analysis of how decreases in trade costs shape the interdependence between countries, with special focus on the joining and industrialization pattern of developing countries into the global value chains (GVCs). I show that in a two-country setting, a decrease in trade costs of intermediates is associated with South moving up the value chain and both North and South experiencing welfare improvement, combined with a non-linear wage response. Then I extend the model into a multi-country setting with two simple thought experiments. I show that when global trade frictions fall, South countries join supply-chain networks due to wage differentials and low trade costs; this increases the North wage but may decrease the wages of an insider South. In addition, “Factory South” are regionally clustered. The model provides a first look at GVCs from the development angle, and raises several interesting policy concerns regarding GVC governance.
