THE SHORT-TERM POVERTY IMPACT OF SMALL-SCALE,COLLATERAL-FREE MICROCREDIT IN INDONESIA: A MATCHING ESTIMATOR APPROACH

Indonesian microfinance is primarily operated by for-profit commercial banks, characterized by large-scale loans that require collateral. In 2003, the largest nongovernmental organization in the country introduced much smaller-scale loans without a collateral requirement. This scheme is commercialized but potentially more suited to the credit demands of the poor. Applying propensity score matching with the difference-in-difference method, this paper examines whether the emerging microcredit scheme has been successful in targeting and improving the welfare of the poor in the one year following loan disbursement. The results show that although collateral ownership is not an important determinant of participation, relatively wealthier families gain access to microcredit. The impact of microcredit on various household outcomes is generally statistically insignificant, except for sales of nonfarm enterprises for the nonpoor and schooling expenditures for the poor. This implies that the microcredit scheme under study might not have an immediate impact on poverty alleviation.     

ROBUST RATIONALIZABILITY UNDER ALMOST COMMON CERTAINTY OF PAYOFFS

An action is robustly rationalizable if it is rationalizable for every type who has almost common certainty of payoffs. We illustrate by means of an example that an action may not be robustly rationalizable even if it is weakly dominant, and argue that robust rationalizability is a very stringent refinement of rationalizability. Nonetheless, we show that every strictly rationalizable action is robustly rationalizable. We also investigate how permissive robust rationalizability becomes if we require that players be fully certain of their own payoffs.     

ASIAN FINANCIAL LINKAGE: MACRO‐FINANCE DISSONANCE

How are Asian financial markets interlinked and how are they linked to markets in developed countries? What is the main driver of fluctuations in Asian financial markets as well as real economic activity? To answer these questions, we estimate the spillover index proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz and gauge the degree of interaction in both financial markets and real economic activity among Asian economies. We first show that the degree of the international spillover in stock markets is uniform, irrespective of the groups of countries concerned, such as the G3 and ASEAN4. This suggests the importance of global common shocks in stock markets. We then discuss the macro‐finance dissonance. In stock and bond markets, the United States has been the main driver of fluctuations. However, China has emerged as an important source of fluctuations in real economic activity.     

WELFARE LOSSES FROM NON‐TARIFF BARRIERS: THE JAPANESE BEEF QUOTA CASE*

A standard method of estimating deadweight losses caused by import quotas is to estimate a utility function by data over a period in which the quota is not imposed, and to use the estimated utility function to evaluate the virtual price of quota‐laden imports. This method, however, is not applicable if preferences are different between quota and non‐quota periods. In order to overcome this difficulty, the present study introduces a method of estimating a utility function directly from data in a quota period. This method is applied to the estimation of deadweight losses attributable to the Japanese beef quota.     

The Effectiveness of Consumption Taxes and Transfers as Insurance Against Idiosyncratic Risk

We quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of a consumption tax and lump-sum transfer program as insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. We use a heterogeneous agent, incomplete markets model in which households adjust savings and employment in each period in the presence of idiosyncratic productivity risk and a borrowing constraint. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy. We find a weak insurance effect of the consumption tax and transfer program. Expanding the tax and transfer program from the current U.S. level increases the capital-output ratio and reduces the interest rate. Consumption inequality also decreases only slightly.     

MICROFINANCE REVOLUTION: ITS EFFECTS,INNOVATIONS, AND CHALLENGES

“Microfinance revolution” is the term often applied to the successful expansion of small-scale financial services to the poor with high repayment records in developing countries. The present paper investigates the extent to which the microfinance revolution is truly revolutionary. More specifically, it explores the impact of microfinance institutions on the poor, the mechanisms underlying high repayment rates and their innovations, and the new challenges microfinance institutions are currently facing. Different from the existing published survey literature, we focus on current topics and attempt to show recent theoretical developments in a comprehensive manner using simplified models with very similar settings. We contend that microfinance is developing in a promising direction but has yet to reach its full potential.     

Econo-Legal Studies的知识课题——循着法的领域

本文介绍了神户大学的"法经联合研究"(Econo-Legal Studies)项目的基本思路,指出其不同于以往"法与经济学"研究的特性。在此基础上,运用卢曼的社会系统理论,从法官群体和案件受理等方面深入分析了日本法律系统的封闭性,以及改变这种封闭性的困难。这具体表现为法律研究生制度改革的顿挫,还有"诉讼爆炸"预期的落空。本文还通过"定期租赁权"论争等事例,指出经济学者与法学者在认识论层面的差异。不同于经济学者总是基于对未来不准确的预测来进行法律政策判断,法学者恰恰认识到了法学可能存在的局限,强调"法"通过在社会成员之间预先设定共同谅解,来应对未来不确定事态的功能。法学者的这种思路在司法改革中可能是十分重要的。     

MICROFINANCE PENETRATION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CREDIT CHOICE IN INDONESIA: EVIDENCE FROM A HOUSEHOLD PANEL SURVEY

This paper studies empirical determinants of how heterogeneous households are matched to different types of loan products in a credit market in Indonesia. A unique situation arose when a microfinance institution launched operations in our survey area during the survey period, and we utilized its market entry for conducting mixed logit analysis of households’ credit choices. Time-varying choice sets help us identify parameters regarding preferences for various credit attributes. Our results show that the new availability of small-scale loans without collateral requirement greatly increases households’ probability of obtaining credit overall. Households in self-employed business prefer formal credit as a stable financing source but are impeded in receiving it when they locate in a rural area, probably because of large transaction costs. The poorest households, however, might not be able to exploit new credit opportunities as much as richer households, even if the scale of credit is very small.     

Debt Overhang and Lack of Lender's Commitment

The debt overhang of sovereigns or firms is modeled in the recent literature as a constrained efficient outcome of dynamic debt contracts under the lack of the borrower's commitment, where debt relief is not Pareto-improving. The early literature observes another type of debt overhang where the borrower is discouraged from expending effort, anticipating the lender to take all output ex post. We show that this inefficiency is due to the lack of the lender's commitment and debt relief is Pareto-improving. Nevertheless, debt overhang may persist, as frictional bargaining over debt relief can take a long time.