Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps

Causal evidence on microcredit impacts informs theory, practice, and debates about its e ectiveness as a development tool. The six randomized evaluations in this volume use a variety of sampling, data collection, experimental design, and econometric strategies to identify causal e ects of expanded access to microcredit on borrowers and/or communities. These methods are deployed across an impressive range of locations six countries on four continents, urban and rural areas borrower characteristics, loan characteristics, and lender characteristics. Summarizing and interpreting results across studies, we note a consistent pattern of modestly positive, but not transformative, e ects. We also discuss directions for future research. * [email protected] (MIT, J-PAL): MIT Department of Economics, 40 Ames Street Building E17, Room 201A, Cambridge, MA 02142; [email protected] (Yale University, IPA, J-PAL, and NBER): Yale University, P.O. Box 208269, New Haven, CT 06520-8269; [email protected] (Dartmouth College, IPA, J-PAL, and NBER): Department of Economics, 314 Rockefeller Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755-3514. The authors would like to thank the coauthors and research teams of all papers that appear in this issue, and Zachary Gro , William Nowak, Glynis Startz, and Martin Sweeney for outstanding research assistance.