José Ignacio Cuesta

José Ignacio Cuesta is an assistant professor of economics at Stanford University, a Faculty Research Fellow at NBER, a Faculty Fellow at SIEPR, and J-PAL invited researcher. He obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2019. His research focuses on the design and regulation of credit and health markets. His previous research studies the design of interest rate caps, the impacts of information frictions in mortgage markets, the design of public procurement and public provision of pharmaceutical drugs, among others.

King Center Supported Research

2023–2024 Academic Year | Global Development Research Funding

Loan Guarantees, Credit Access and Development for Small Farmers in Mexico

Research in economics has collected substantial evidence showing that small firms in developing countries face large barriers to growth. A relevant barrier to firm growth in developing countries is access to credit markets, which is also true in agriculture. A common explanation for low credit access by small firms in developing countries is related to asymmetric information about firm riskiness and the inability of small firms to pledge collateral. Guided by this diagnostic, more than 100 developed and developing countries have loan guarantee programs globally, under which governments acts as guarantor for small firms. However, little is known about the effectiveness if these programs. In this project, we evaluate the impacts of loan guarantees on credit access and development for small farmers in Mexico. We plan to implement a large-scale RCT in partnership with the Mexican government to inform the impacts, design and targeting of these programs.