Research Insights: Do Better-Connected Community Members Benefit More from Subsidized Credit?

More powerful and less productive households, both in terms of wealth and connections, ended up obtaining more credit from a community-based lending program. Informal markets partially attenuated these targeting distortions by redirecting credit from connected to unconnected households, albeit at higher rates. Despite the targeting distortions, a community-based approach may still be more appealing than other centralized criteria to target credit. Eliminating the connection-based advantage may lead to village-level gains in terms of equity and output.