We study the liberalization of the microcredit usury rate in Colombia and its effects on loan expansion. In February 2007 the interest rate ceiling for microcredit loans was lifted and fixed to 33%, while the ceiling of all other loans remained unchanged and close to 20%. We perform a Difference-in-Difference analysis by comparing the expansion of microcredit loans (treatment group) with that of corporate loans (control group). While both credit portfolios target the same type of clients, namely entrepreneurs, we nonetheless control for loan size and debtor’s riskiness to make both loan portfolios more comparable. We employ highly granular data (using the entire credit registry, with roughly one million observations during 2005–2008) both at the loan and bank-level. Our results indicate that this policy encouraged and facilitated credit access. On average, we find that for every percentage point lift in the microcredit lending rate, the number of new loans increases by 4.5% and the total loan portfolio increases by 3.7%. Further, the size of each microcredit loan decreases, on average, by 8%, and the loan term maturity is reduced by approximately 3 months.

我们研究哥伦比亚小额信贷高利贷利率的自由化及其对贷款扩张的影响。 2007年2月，小额信贷的利率上限被取消并固定在33%，而所有其他贷款的利率上限保持不变，接近20%。我们通过比较小额信贷（处理组）和企业贷款（对照组）的扩张情况来进行双重差分分析。虽然两个信贷组合都针对同一类型的客户，即企业家，但我们仍然控制贷款规模和债务人的风险，以使两个贷款组合更具可比性。我们在贷款和银行层面均采用高度精细的数据（使用整个信用登记处，2005 年至 2008 年期间大约有 100 万个观察数据）。我们的结果表明，这项政策鼓励并促进了信贷获取。平均而言，我们发现小额信贷利率每提高一个百分点，新增贷款数量将增加 4.5%，贷款总额将增加 3.7%。此外，每笔小额信贷规模平均下降8%，贷款期限缩短约3个月。