Dangers of a Double-Bottom Line: A Poverty Targeting Experiment Misses Both Targets / Dean Karlan, Adam Osman, Jonathan Zinman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Karlan, Dean.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Osman, Adam.

Zinman, Jonathan.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w24379.

NBER working paper series no. w24379

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Dangers of a Double-Bottom Line

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2018.

Summary:

Two for-profit Philippine banks, aiming to increasing microlending to the poor, incorporated a widely used poverty measurement tool into their loan applications and tested the tool using randomized training content. Treated loan officers were provided an explanation of the tool's purpose; exhortation tying the tool to the organizations' social missions; and reassurance that these data, conditional on other characteristics, do not predict default and thus should not jeopardize incentive pay based on portfolio performance. The control group training merely labeled the tool "additional household information." The strategy backfired, leading to no additional poor applicants and potentially lower-performing loans. Descriptive evidence suggests the training exacerbated loan officer misperceptions about compensation incentives and multitasking problems. This cautionary tale is an example of why management may want include social outcomes directly into employee performance evaluations, or silo corporate social responsibility efforts from core operations.

Notes:

Print version record

March 2018.