中文摘要
我们利用马里农业贷款的一项两阶段实验，检验进入贷款市场的选择是否能预测资本回报的异质性。理解这种异质性及其揭示的选择过程，对于指导发展中国家信贷市场的建模以及政策制定至关重要。我们发现了这种异质性：借款农民的资本回报高于未借款农民。在第一阶段，我们在部分村庄提供贷款，而在其他村庄不提供。在第二阶段，我们在未提供贷款的村庄中，向所有农民的一个随机子集提供现金补助，并在提供贷款的村庄中，向不借款农民的一个随机子集提供现金补助。我们估计，潜在借款者的补助季节性回报为130%，而对于代表非借款者的样本，我们发现的回报接近于零。我们还提供证据表明，存在一些农民——尤其是那些在基期贫困的农民——具有高回报但未能获得贷款。
Abstract
We use a two‐stage experiment on agricultural lending in Mali to test whether selection into lending is predictive of heterogeneous returns to capital. Understanding this heterogeneity, and the selection process which reveals it, is critical for guiding modeling of credit markets in developing countries, as well as for policy. We find such heterogeneity: returns to capital are higher for farmers who borrow than for those who do not. In our first stage, we offer loans in some villages and not others. In the second stage, we provide cash grants to a random subset of all farmers in villages where no loans were offered, and to a random subset of the farmers who do not borrow in villages where loans were offered. We estimate seasonal returns to the grant of 130% for would‐be borrowers, whereas we find returns near zero for the sample representative of non‐borrowers. We also provide evidence that there are some farmers—particularly those that are poor at baseline—that have high returns but do not receive a loan.