Simon Quinn

• Glasgow Caledonian University

We conduct a field experiment in which we offer credit and saving contracts to the same pool of Pakistani microfinance clients. Additional treatments test ex ante demand for soft commitment (in the form of reminders, either to respondents or to their families), hard commitment (in the form of a penalty for missing an instalment), and flexibility (a...

This paper summarizes recent research in performance-based microfinance, and outlines future directions for research. We use the term ‘microequity’ to refer to any small-enterprise financing contract in which the repayment owed in each instalment depends positively upon the variable performance of the enterprise. We summarize research from financia...

This paper presents a summary of this issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, on microfinance. The paper explores the evolving landscape of microfinance, with particular emphasis on its broadening scope. It summarizes the four parts of this journal issue, focusing on: (i) microfinance and its providers; (ii) the challenges of taking microfin...

We run a field experiment offering graduated microcredit clients the opportunity to finance a business asset worth four times their usual borrowing limit. We implement this using a hire-purchase contract; our control group is offered a zero interest loan at the usual borrowing limit. We find large, significant, and persistent effects: treated micro...

We introduce an adaptive targeted treatment assignment methodology for field experiments. Our Tempered Thompson Algorithm balances the goals of maximizing the precision of treatment effect estimates and maximizing the welfare of experimental participants. A hierarchical Bayesian model allows us to adaptively target treatments. We implement our meth...

This paper presents a summary assessment of this issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, on forced migration. The issue is concerned with four important questions: (i) What are the general mechanisms by which forced migrants should be managed, and what frameworks should be used for supporting them? (ii) How can policy help refugees integrate...

This paper introduces and summarizes this issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, on management practices. We outline key concepts in the empirical study of structured management practices, then summarize each of the eight papers that follows. We conclude by speculating on future directions for research and policy development in this area.

Chapter 16 describes an experiment that is in progress in Kenya to encourage entrepreneurial activity through financing investment by micro-equity rather than micro-debt. The experiment involves individuals distributing Wrigley chewing gum products alongside other goods in Kenya, in particular in areas of the country which were previously impenetra...

We conduct a field experiment offering graduated microcredit clients the opportunity to finance a business asset worth four times their previous borrowing limit. We implement this using a hire-purchase contract; our control group is offered a zero-interest loan. We find large, significant and persistent effects from asset finance contracts: treated...

We evaluate the impacts of a job fair intervention that decreases meeting costs between large firms and young jobseekers, randomizing fair attendance among workers and among firms. The fairs generate a rich set of interactions between workers and firms, but very few hires: one for every twelve firms that attended. On the other hand, the fairs motiv...

We show that helping young job-seekers signal their skills to employers generates large and persistent improvements in their labour market outcomes. We do this by comparing an intervention that improves the ability to signal skills (the ‘job application workshop’) to a transport subsidy treatment designed to reduce the cost of job search. In the sh...

This study analyzes the effects of differences in survey frequency and medium on microenterprise survey data. A sample of enterprises were randomly assigned to monthly in-person, weekly in-person, or weekly phone surveys for a 12-week panel. The results show few differences across the groups in measured means, distributions, and deviations of measu...

The COVID-19 pandemic threatens lives and livelihoods, and, with that, has created immediate challenges for institutions that serve affected communities. We focus on implications for local microfinance institutions in Pakistan, a country with a mature microfinance sector, serving a large number of households. The institutions serve populations poor...

We gave US$1000 cash prizes to winners of a business plan competition in Africa. Participants were ranked by committees of established entrepreneurs. Each committee selected one winner among 12 candidates. Six months after the competition, we compare winners with the two runners-up in each committee: winners are about 33 percentage points more like...

We run a novel field experiment to link managers of African manufacturing firms. The experiment resembles the many forms of interaction that business and community organizations offer to their members. The design features exogenous link formation, exogenous seeding of information, and exogenous assignment to treatment and placebo. We study the impa...

High-frequency data is useful to measure volatility, reduce recall bias, and measure dynamic treatment effects. We conduct the first experimental evaluation of high-frequency phone surveys in a developing country or with microenterprises. We randomly assign microenterprise owners to monthly in-person, weekly inperson, or weekly phone interviews. We...

Following recent literature, we hypothesise that saving and borrowing among microfinance clients are substitutes, satisfying the same underlying demand for a regular deposit schedule and a lump-sum withdrawal. We test this using a framed field experiment among women participating in group lending in rural Pakistan. The experiment — inspired by the...

Standard models often predict that people should either demand to save or demand to borrow, but not both. We hypothesise instead that saving and borrowing among microfinance clients are substitutes, satisfying the same underlying demand: for a regular schedule of deposits and a lump-sum withdrawal. We test this using a framed field experiment among...

This article uses a company law reform in Morocco as a natural experiment to study the value of corporate governance for bank credit. In 2001, Morocco replaced a company law from 19th-century France with modern standards of corporate accountability; this reform was very similar to reforms implemented in many developing countries at about the same t...

In this paper, we use a three-period panel of Tanzanian households to explore the determinants of earnings and earnings growth from 2004 to 2006. In doing so, we draw particular attention to the role of education and to the importance of heterogeneity between more and less formal occupations. Several important conclusions emerge. Education is found...

In this note, I discuss aspects of remote Indigenous poverty in the context of recent research in development economics. I discuss the issues of aspirations, orbiting, humbugging, income fungi-bility, crime, property rights and skills. I go on to discuss principles to guide evaluation; I argue that evaluation is fundamentally important for effectiv...