Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which individual risk attitude determines a Cambodian smallholder's choice between a commercial informal loan and a credit from a licensed microfinance institution.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper analyzes a sample of smallholder farmers in the Ratanakiri province in northeastern Cambodia, a country with a long history of microfinance and a saturated microcredit market. Employing a binary and a multinomial logit model, this paper assesses the effect of individual risk attitude on the choice of a financial instrument.

Findings

The results reveal a statistically significant relationship between the choice of a credit source and an individual's risk attitude: On average (c.p.) the less risk averse the smallholder is, the more they tend to prefer an unlicensed commercial lender.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that less risk-averse individuals tend to take up riskier and generally more expensive informal loans. Measures to increase the safe access to financial services for less risk-averse borrowers as well as improvements in financial literacy should be undertaken to protect smallholders from taking risky choices.

Originality/value

Although existing studies have examined the importance of risk attitudes between credit provider and borrower, they focus mainly on the lender's perspective. This paper provides new insights on how risk attitude influences the borrower's choice in Cambodia. Thus, this study is relevant for policymakers in countries with oversaturated microcredit markets and a high prevalence of informal lenders.

中文翻译：

---

柬埔寨小农在小额信贷机构和非正式商业放债人之间的选择：风险态度的作用

目的

本文的目的是研究个人风险态度在多大程度上决定了柬埔寨小农在商业非正规贷款和持牌小额信贷机构信贷之间的选择。

设计/方法/方法

本文分析了柬埔寨东北部腊塔纳基里省的小农样本，该国拥有悠久的小额信贷历史和饱和的小额信贷市场。本文采用二元和多项 logit 模型，评估个人风险态度对金融工具选择的影响。

发现

结果揭示了信贷来源的选择与个人风险态度之间的统计显着关系：平均 (cp) 小农的风险厌恶程度越低，他们越倾向于选择无执照的商业贷款人。

实际影响

研究结果表明，风险厌恶程度较低的个人倾向于接受风险更大且通常更昂贵的非正式贷款。应采取措施增加风险厌恶程度较低的借款人获得金融服务的安全性，并提高金融知识，以保护小农免于冒险选择。

原创性/价值

尽管现有的研究已经检验了信贷提供者和借款人之间风险态度的重要性，但它们主要关注的是贷方的观点。本文就风险态度如何影响柬埔寨借款人的选择提供了新的见解。因此，本研究与小额信贷市场过度饱和和非正规贷款人普遍存在的国家的政策制定者相关。