The Village Money Market Revealed: Financial Access and Credit Chain Links Between Formal and Informal Sectors

Abstract

An all-or-nothing view of financial access leading to overly simplistic policy recommendations has been largely overturned in the data. Heterogeneity and explicit obstacles to trade are key aspects that need to be incorporated into models when looking at intermediate outcomes in the data. Networks in particular can amplify or work against policy interventions and do so in different directions for different groups at the same time. Work on village money markets allows us to better understand how these networks function, and how and why they can change with policy interventions. Nevertheless, though village economies are as sophisticated as those in New York financial markets, both suffer from familiar problems. One is reliance on relationships that segment markets and limit more universal benefits. A second problem is market contagion. Policy interventions facilitating financial access and the functioning of markets need to be guided by this stricter yet more realistic view.