Dangers of a Double-Bottom Line: A Poverty Targeting Experiment Misses Both Targets
22 Pages Posted: 12 Apr 2018
Date Written: April 2018
Abstract
Two for-profit Philippine social enterprises, aiming to demonstrate corporate social responsibility by 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 instructed why and how to use the tool for targeting; control group training merely labelled the tool "additional household information". The targeting training backfired, leading to no additional poor applicants and lower-performing loans. Descriptive evidence suggests the targeting training exacerbated loan officer misperceptions and multitasking problems. Our results help explain why corporate social responsibility efforts are often siloed from core operations.
Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, discrimination, double-bottom line, microcredit, Microfinance, Multi-tasking, poverty targeting, social business
JEL Classification: D12, D22, D92, G21, O12, O16
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation