Analysis of the Incentive Mechanisms of Individual and Group- Microlending Contracts

the group- and the individual-based micro-lending contracts. The success of group lending has been attributed to the ability of the lender to alleviate asymmetric information problems. The existing theoretical literature offers a number of explanations for this phenomenon including the building of homogeneous groups, strong social ties between group members, internal group pressure to repay loans, and a willingness to help fellow group members. Using data from a questionnaire given to 236 borrowing groups of the microfinance institutions Constanta (Georgia) and FORA (Russia), this study describes to what extent borrowers behave as predicted by theory. According to the empirical results, the assortative matching brings informational advantages to the lenders and helps them mitigate the adverse selection problem. It is, however, not an absolutely necessary condition for the success of the group lending. When the selection period is very short borrowers oft The analysis of the individual lending mechanism - based on the experience of 130 borrowers of the Microfinance Bank of Georgia – shows that there are three core elements, a) the demand for non-conventional collateral, b) a screening procedure which combines psychological with economic elements, and c) dynamic incentives, which ensure high repayment rates of up to 100% if small amounts of capital are lent on an individual basis. Finally, the analysis of the key characteristics of the surveyed borrowers reveals that the target group, which can be efficiently served by either one of the two mechanisms, is different. Individual loan contracts better fit to businesses with a dynamic perspective, joint-liability approaches better fit to rather static businesses. Only borrowers with a dynamic perspective but without collateral are forced to make use of the joint-liability approach until they are able to switch to individual loans. The conclusion is that there is no better design than a combination of individual-based and joint-liability loan contracts if a micro-lender aims to reach all types of micro-entrepreneurs in a certain region.