Abstract:
The main purpose of this study was to discover if competition has a negative effect on microloan repayment rates. In addition, this study tests the effects of gender, income, interest rate, age of microfinance institution, legal status, and regulatory status on loan repayment rates. In order to test the relationships, this study used two countries from Asia, India and Bangladesh, and two countries from Latin America, Peru and Bolivia. The years of the observations used varies from 2003 to 2011.
The results show that the competition variable is not significant in any countries studied while gender and legal status have a significant positive effect on repayment rates, whereas age has a significant negative effect in repayment rate in specific countries. This study also shows that in the case of Bolivia, the repayment rate is strongly affected by the economic condition of the country at the time.
