Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
储蓄小组如何应对农业冲击？
How Do Savings Groups Respond to Agricultural Shocks?
摘要
Negative aggregate shocks lead to persistent rural poverty. Access to credit and insurance can help, but is often lacking. How do informal financial institutions, dependent on locally sourced capital, respond to shocks? We study the response of savings groups—locally run financial associations mostly embedded in rural agricultural communities—to aggregate shocks. We explore this by combining group‐level performance data for 9328 savings groups primarily in five sub‐Saharan African countries with local drought data. We use two‐way fixed‐effects and heterogeneity‐robust difference‐in‐differences analyses to assess how these informal financial groups respond to drought shocks. Groups mobilise credit during shocks by increasing the number of loans they provide. The counter‐cyclical credit response is concentrated among groups shocked in the later stages of their savings cycle, where accumulated capital permits additional lending, confirming a capital‐constraint prediction. The social fund, designed for idiosyncratic shocks, is not mobilised during droughts. We discuss implications for integrating informal savings groups into climate‐risk management strategies.
中文摘要
负向总体冲击会导致持续性的农村贫困。获得信贷和保险可能有所帮助，但往往难以实现。依赖本地资金来源的非正式金融机构如何应对冲击？我们研究了储蓄小组——主要嵌入农村农业社区、由地方运营的金融协会——对总体冲击的响应。我们通过将主要位于五个撒哈拉以南非洲国家的9328个储蓄小组的小组层面绩效数据与当地干旱数据相结合来探讨这一问题。我们使用双向固定效应和异质性稳健双重差分分析，评估这些非正式金融小组如何应对干旱冲击。小组在冲击期间通过增加所提供的贷款数量来动员信贷。这种逆周期信贷响应集中在其储蓄周期后期受到冲击的小组中，在这些小组中，积累的资本允许额外放贷，从而证实了资本约束预测。为异质性冲击而设计的社会基金在干旱期间并未被动员。我们讨论了将非正式储蓄小组纳入气候风险管理策略的含义。