Exposure to intimate partner violence and repayment of microcredit: Evidence from field experiments in Bangladesh

This paper investigates the impact of intimate partner violence on poor women's repayment behavior in microcredit. In a laboratory-based field experiment, we extended collateral-free small loans to 485 currently married women in rural Bangladesh and observed their repayment decisions over multiple loan cycles. In a post-experiment survey, we asked subjects about their experience of spousal violence. We find that women who experienced physical or...