Why don't Lenders Finance High‐Return Technological Change in Developing‐Country Agriculture?
构建了一个信息理论信贷市场模型，解释贷款人为何不愿为小农户的高回报低风险技术投资提供融资，即使借款人愿意支付更高利率，原因在于贷款人无法区分借款人的时间偏好和违约倾向。
Abstract Most of the literature attributes credit constraints in small‐farm developing‐country agriculture to the variability of returns to investment in this sector. But the literature does not fully explain lenders' reluctance to finance investments in technologies that provide both higher average and less variable returns. This article develops an information‐theoretic credit market model with endogenous technology choice. The model demonstrates that lenders may refuse to finance any investment in a riskless high‐return technology—regardless of the interest rate they are offered—when they are imperfectly informed about loan applicants' time preferences and, therefore, about their propensities to default intentionally in order to finance current consumption.