Evaluating the Impact of Mass Borrower Bailout in Jordan's Microfinance Landscape

Borrower debt relief stands as a widely utilized, yet deeply contentious economic policy enacted by governments universally. This paper adopts a difference-in-differences design to study the impact of a women-targeted mass borrower relief program enacted by the government of Jordan in 2019 on credit market outcomes of formal microfinance institutions (MFIs). I find that the program led to significant credit rationing and reallocation from women and areas of higher risk to men and areas of lower risk. Post-program levels of MFI portfolio risk remain stable with no evidence supporting the existence of moral hazard among MFIs, suggesting stricter lending practices in response to the relief.