A Microeconometric Investigation into Bank Interest Rate Rigidity

For example, take the claim that many poor households will pay high interest rates without flinching, and the related claim that the existence of moneylenders implies the insensitivity of most borrowers to interest rates. Moneylender loans are often taken for short periods of less than a month, however, and are often used as a short-term patch to meet pressing consumption needs--while microfinance loans are typically held for several months at minimum and are targeted at business investment. The standard Grameen Bank loan, for example, had a one-year term. The most typical informal-sector loan is in fact not...