Excerpt
Repayment Frequency and Default in Micro-Finance: Evidence from India, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, January 2008, Paper. "In stark contrast to bank debt contracts, most micro-finance con- tracts require that repayments start nearly immediately after loan disbursement and occur weekly thereafter. Even though economic theory suggests that a more flexible repayment schedule would benefit clients and potentially improve their repayment capacity, micro- finance practitioners argue that the fiscal discipline imposed by frequent repayment is critical to preventing loan default. In this paper we use data from a field experiment which randomized client assignment to a weekly or monthly repayment schedule and find no significant effect of type of repayment schedule on client delinquency or default."