This paper uses the most recent wave of a nationally representative dataset to examine the factors associated with elderly homeowners’ decision to obtain reverse mortgage loans. The findings of this study suggest that very few homeowners participated in the reverse mortgage market, and homeowners younger than 67 were less likely to have reverse mortgage loans. However, homeowners who were risk ...

Lenders condition future loans on some index of past performance. Typically, banks condition future loans on repayments of earlier obligations while international organizations condition future loans on the implementation of some policy conditions. We build an agency model that accounts for these tendencies to offer an explanation for why both types of conditionality clause may coexist. The opt...

a r t i c l e i n f o Dynamic incentives, where incentives to repay are generated by granting access to future loans, are one of the methodologies used by microfinance institutions (MFIs). In this paper, I present a model of dynamic incentives where lenders are uncertain over how much borrowers value future loans. Loan terms are determined endoge-nously, and loans become more favorable as the p...

Using detailed data on gifts, loans, and asset sales, this paper investigates how rural Filipino households deal with income and expenditure shocks. We find that shocks have a strong effect on gifts and informal loans, but little effect on sales of livestock and grain. Mutual insurance does not appear to take place at the village level; rather, households receive help primarily through networks...

Does access to credit explain the gap in schooling attainment between children from richer and poorer families? I present new evidence on this important question using two college tuition loans in Chile. Both programs offer loans to students who score above a threshold on the national college admission test, enabling a regression discontinuity design. I find that loan access implies an increase...

Abstract Does financing respond to changes in productive opportunities, even for the world’s poor? We answer this question by examining response of private bank an infrastructure program that brought road access unconnected Indian villages. This prioritized roads villages above specific population thresholds, allowing us exploit resultant discontinuities identification. Using detailed data from...