Group lending and the role of the group leader
研究了团体贷款中成员因未来利润不对称而产生的策略性监督行为，发现未来利润最高的成员监督最多，且存在搭便车效应；引入团体领导者后，其监督努力更高，并用厄立特里亚调查数据验证了领导者更重视未来收益。
This paper investigates strategic monitoring behavior within group lending. We show that monitoring efforts of group members differ in equilibrium due to the asymmetry between members in terms of future profits. In particular, we show that the entrepreneur with the highest future profits also puts in the highest monitoring effort. Moreover, monitoring efforts differ between group members due to free-riding: one member reduces her level of monitoring if the other increases her monitoring effort. This effect is also at play when we introduce a group leader into the model. The individual who becomes the group leader supplies more monitoring effort than in the benchmark case. We empirically test the model using data from a survey of microfinance in Eritrea and show that the group leader attaches more weight to future periods than nonleaders in the group, which may explain why a large part of total monitoring is done by the leader.