Ideas to Action:

Independent research for global prosperity

David Roodman's Microfinance Open Book Blog

Draft chapters, burning questions, useful sources.

X

David Roodman's Microfinance Open Book Blog

Feed

 

Randomized Test of Microcredit in Mongolia

12/23/11
David Roodman

A few years ago, Alaka Holla and Michael Kremer, the latter a leader in the randomization revolution, opened a CGD working paper with this interesting observation:

Over the past 10 to 15 years, randomized evaluations have gone from being a rarity to a standard part of the toolkit of academic development economics. We are now at a point where, at least for some issues, we can stand back and look beyond the results of a single evaluation to see whether certain common lessons emerge.

Leave a comment

First Randomized Trial of Microsavings

7/3/09
David Roodman

I fear I got swept up in the disproportionate focus on credit in pouncing to blog the first randomized trial of microcredit while neglecting its counterpart for microsavings. I learned about it from Jonathan Morduch's blog in February just as I was launching this one. (Hat tip to Daniel Radcliffe for nudging it back up my reading list.)

5 comments

First Randomized Trial of Microcredit

5/29/09
David Roodman

I have blogged about the power and limitations of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Overall, I am a believer. I think the question researchers impertinently ask practitioners—can we show statistically that microfinance is helping?—is worth asking. And non-randomized methods have largely failed to answer it with credibility. So in my view it was for decades essentially correct to say that we have zero solid studies of whether microfinance makes clients better off on average.

4 comments

Tags

Experts

By Date