Financial (Dis-)Information : Evidence from a Multi-Country Audit Study

Gine, Xavier ; Mazer, Rafael Keenan

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: financial information;    audit study;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7750
RP-ID  :  WPS7750

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

An audit study was conducted in Ghana,Mexico and Peru to understand the quality of financialinformation and products offered to low-income customers.Trained auditors visited multiple financial institutions,seeking credit and savings products. Consistent with Gabaixand Laibson (2006), staff only provides information aboutthe cost when asked, disclosing less than a third of thetotal cost voluntarily. In fact, the cost disclosedvoluntarily is uncorrelated with the expensiveness of theproduct. In addition, clients are rarely offered thecheapest product, most likely because staff is incentivizedto offer more expensive and thus more profitable products tothe institution. This suggests that clients are not providedenough information to be able to compare among products, andthat disclosure and transparency policies may be ineffectivebecause they undermine the commercial interest of financial institutions.