Impacto de la inclusión financiera en la economía local. El programa de agricultura financiera en México

Abstract

Impact of financial inclusion on the local economy. The Financial Agriculture Program in Mexico

This document provides empirical evidence of the impact on real variables of the economy of a public scheme guarantee to promote private financing for family farmers: The Family Agriculture Financing Program (Proaf). For its proper implementation, it was fundamental to find the right channel (the Savings and Loan Cooperative Societies) to provide financing to underserved populations. To measure the impact, we leverage staggered incorporation of municipalities into the program given the regional presence of SOCAPs. We study the period 2012–2020 and a broad rollout of the implementation of the program occurring between 2015 and 2020. We combined a series of administrative datasets on the presence of Savings and Loan Cooperative Societies in each municipality and the value of agricultural production, and using event-study and difference-in-differences methods, our main result indicates that Proaf has a positive impact on the value of agricultural production by almost 20 percent and on the value of livestock production by almost 6 percent. These results point to the economic importance of access to financing for small producers, especially women.