Can hope elevate microfinance? Evidence from Oaxaca, Mexico
通过随机实验，在墨西哥小额信贷机构中引入基于积极心理学的希望课程，发现该干预适度提升了借款人的希望水平和微型企业绩效，尤其显著增加了就业和招聘计划。
Abstract Recent evidence suggests that the average effects of microfinance on borrowers is more modest than previously claimed. We carry out an experiment to test whether an intervention designed to increase aspirational hope among borrowers can elevate microfinance impacts. In collaboration with a microfinance lender in Mexico, we produced a documentary featuring successful borrowers within the organization and designed and implemented a hope curriculum rooted in positive psychology (Snyder, 1994), which conceptualizes hope as aspirations, agency, and pathways. Bank officers incorporated this curriculum into their regular weekly meetings with a randomly treated half of 52 women’s savings and credit groups with 733 women over the course of one year. We find that the intervention modestly increased indices measuring both aspirational hope and microenterprise performance over this time period. The intervention significantly increased employment and plans to hire new employees. Increases in microenterprise sales and profits were positive but statistically insignificant.