1. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
A Modified Household Economic Portfolio Model for Assessing Impact of Microfinance Using Diaries
Hayyan ALIA*, ArvindASHTA**, ZakaRATSIMALAHELO*
*University of Franche-Comte, France
**Burgundy School of Business, France
Our thanks to the BanquePopulaireChair in microfinance of the Burgundy School of Business
and the Burgundy Regional Council for partial financing

2. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Impact Evaluation: Quantitative VS Qualitative
The Quantitative Evaluationsneedto solvethe attribution problem
The Qualitative Evaluationslook at the process
Quantitative Question
Is there "statistically" an impact of MF or not?
Qualitative Question
How the intervention of MF could have led to the observed impact?

3. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Quantitative Impact Evaluation
Problems
Money is fungible by nature.
There are no formal records of informal income.
Solutions
Continues monitoring.
Focus on consumption and itssmoothening.
Methods
Frequent observations.
Flexible surveys.
Karlan(2011), in the Handbook of Microfinance
But it remains expensive

4. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
OVERCOMINGTHE FUNGIBILITYPROBLEM

5. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
TheHousehold Economic Portfolio Model (HEP)
The(HEP)modelofChenandDunn(1996)ishighlyinterestingasitovercomesthefungibilityproblem. TheHEPwaspublishedin1996asatheoreticalconceptualmodelinadeskstudyby(USAID).
Sinceitscreation,theHEPhasbeencitedinmanystudies(Hulme,1997,2000;Jacobsen,2006; Gobezie,2007;Al-Mamun,2010,2011).
TheHEPsuffersfromsomelimitationsthatmaketheimplementationofitquitecomplex.

6. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
TheHousehold Economic Portfolio Model (HEP)

7. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
TheModifiedHouseholdEconomicPortfolioModel(M-HEP)

8. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
OVERCOMINGTHE PROBLEMOF ABSENCE OF FORMALRECORDS
Diaries= dailyrecord
Diaries(fromlatin dies = day)
Journal (FromFrench jour =day)

9. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Financialdiariesinmicrofinanceresearch
Used for the first time in 1999-2000 (Rutherford, 2002).
Used in a lot of recent work (Rutherford, 2002; Collins, 2008; Collins et. al., 2009; Gammage, 2010).
Focused on financial transactions of the poor
Despitetheinfluentialinsightsproducedbythefinancialdiaries,thesediariesalonearenotenoughforconstructingcompleteportfolios.
Non-economicactiviesandleisurearealsopartofthetotalwelfare(Juster& Stafford,1991;Merz/Rathjen2009).
Intrahouseholdsrelationsnotshowinthediaries(Hudon,2010).In-kindtransactionsnotshown(Vincent&Cull, 2011).

10. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Time-use diaries in microfinance research..?
Sincethelate1970s,alotofworkhasbeendoneonresearchingthetime-allocationbehaviorindevelopingcountriesespeciallyforwomen.
Veryfewstudiesinmicrofinancehaveresearchedthetimeallocationoftheclients(Pitt,2000;Mahmud, 2003;Garikipati,2008).
Time-Use Diaries

11. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
COMBININGTHE FINANCIAL AND TIME DIARIES

12. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Case Studiesin Cairo
Wehavecollectedfinancialandatime-usediariesfromasampleofpoorwomeninEgyptinAugust2013.
Eachdiaristkeptbothdiariesfor14daysinArabic.
Thesenon-stylizeddiarieswerethenenteredintoanexcelsheet,whichthenconstitutedourdatabase.

13. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
MabroukahadnomoneyandverylittleornofinancialactivityonAugust8toAugust11.Onthesethreedaysshesleptalot(Aug8,9and10).
ShecleanedalotonAugust8and9,preparedalotoffoodonAugust10andwatchedalotTVonAugust11. Allofthese,exceptfortheTVareunpaidjobs.
Thereseemstobeacorrespondencebetweenthematterofgettingpaidandthespendingoftimeonunpaidjobs.Whenonegoesup,theothergoesdown.
Findingsfromthe combineddiaryof Mabrouka

14. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Bykeepingthehouseclean(unpaidjob),sheistryingtomaintainthevalueofherphysicalcapital. Byspendingaround9%ofhertimeontheunpaidjobofpreparingfood(whichmountsto40%ifweincludethegroceryshoppingactivity),andbyspendingonfood74%outofhertotalexpenditure, shemaintainsherhumancapital.
Inaddition,aswecanseefromthetime-usediary, bymeetingpeopleonthestreetsandintheirhomes,Mabroukaisretainingherhumancapital(network)andbywatchingTVsheisaddingtohertotaleducationandremaininginformed.
Findingsfromthe combineddiaryof Mabrouka

15. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Limitations
Costlyapproach,thusonlytheheadofthehouseholdwasstudiedinourcase.
Diarydataanalysisisnoteasy,butprovidesrichinformationasourcasestudyshows.
Moreover,theuseofnon-stylizeddiaries:
Willleadtoahighcodingcostforthedifferentactivities,againconfirmedbyourcasestudy.
Also,somerespondentsbecometoogeneralandthereforebecomeuninteresting.
Comparabilityissues.

16. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
Conclusion
Developingimpactevaluationtoolsinmicrofinance.
Thepoor,aswell,areexpectedtobenefitfromthediarytoolsthatmakethembetterawareoftheireconomicbehaviors.
DonorsandsociallyresponsibleinvestorswouldbeinterestedinoutcomesoftheM-HEPthatcouldhelpforbetterunderstandingtheprocessofcreatingimpactinmicrofinance.
The use of combined financial and time diaries contribute to:

17. contact@e-mfp.eu
www.e-mfp.eu
#emw2014
EUROPEAN
MICROFINANCE WEEK 2014
DEVELOPING BETTER MARKETS
ThankYou
hayyan.alia@escdijon.eu