Psychometrics as a Tool to Improve Screening and Access to Credit [book]

Irani Arráiz, Miriam Bruhn, Rodolfo Stucchi
2015 Policy Research Working Papers   unpublished
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more » ... bedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose, as provided below. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license. Abstract: This paper studies the use of psychometric tests, designed by the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL), as a tool to screen out high credit risk and potentially increase access to credit for small business owners in Peru. We use administrative data covering the period from June 2011 to April 2014 to compare debt accrual and repayment behavior patterns across entrepreneurs who were offered a loan based on the traditional credit-scoring method versus the EFL tool. We find that the psychometric test can lower the risk of the loan portfolio when used as a secondary screening mechanism for already banked entrepreneurs-i.e., those with a credit history. For unbanked entrepreneurs-i.e., those without a credit history-using the EFL tool can increase access to credit without increasing portfolio risk. JEL Classification: D82, G21, G32
doi:10.1596/1813-9450-7506 fatcat:2qggftcvand6ldnhqkqastyyue