This paper studies the use of psychometric tests, which were designed by the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab as a tool to screen out high credit risk and potentially increase access to credit for small business owners in Peru. The analysis uses administrative data covering the period from June 2011...

This paper provides evidence that commercial lenders in Peru free ride off their peers'screening efforts. Leveraging a discontinuity in the loan approval process of a large bank, the study finds that competing lenders responded to additional loan approvals by issuing approvals of their own....

We provide evidence that commercial lenders in Peru free ride off their peer's screening efforts. Leveraging a discontinuity in the loan approval process of a large bank, we find competing lenders responded to additional loan approvals by issuing approvals of their own. Competing lenders...

This study collaborated with the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab and a large bank in Peru to use psychometrics for small and medium-size enterprise lending. Applicants used a psychometric tool and those who achieved a score higher than a threshold were offered a loan. Using a regression...

This study collaborated with the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab and a large bank in Peru to use psychometrics for small and medium-size enterprise lending. Applicants used a psychometric tool and those who achieved a score higher than a threshold were offered a loan. Using a regression...

This paper provides evidence that commercial lenders in Peru free ride off their peers' screening efforts. Leveraging a discontinuity in the loan approval process of a large bank, the study finds that competing lenders responded to additional loan approvals by issuing approvals of their own....

This paper studies the effect of government-backed partial credit guarantees on firms' performance. These guarantees are automatically granted to firms without enough collateral in order to lift their credit constraints. We put together a panel, covering the period 1997-2007, that combines data...

This paper presents the evaluation of the Enterprise Restructuring Support Program in Argentina. The aim of the program was to increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises by cofinancing technical assistance that can be classified as either support for process innovation or...

This paper evaluates the impact of the Argentine SME support program PRE on employment, real wages, and exports. The program aimed at increasing the competitiveness of SMEs by co-financing up to fifty percent of expenditures in professional services and technical assistance. We use a unique...

Very little is known about the effectiveness of SME policies, and a careful look at the structure, mechanisms and incentives provided by these policies suggest caution in their implementation and, most importantly, the need to carefully and closely monitor their results. This paper relies on the...