Conference Paper
Summary of \"Expanding credit access: using randomized supply decisions to estimate the impacts\"
Karlan, Dean; Zinman, Jonathan (2008)
Proceedings , Paper 1084

Conference Paper
Observing unobservables: identifying information asymmetries with a consumer-credit field experiment
Karlan, Dean; Zinman, Jonathan (2005)
Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the empirical importance of adverse selection and moral hazard in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology derived from theoretical models. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers issued by a major South African lender along three dimensions: 1) the initial "offer interest rate" appearing on the direct mail solicitations; 2) a "contract interest rate" equal to or less than the offer interest rate and revealed to the over 4,000 borrowers who agreed to the initial ...
Proceedings , Paper 961