Pre-Departure

Hello all,

I wanted to (and I have to) create a blog this summer to track the on-goings of my internship in Peru.

I leave in 2 days, and I'm very excited. I have bought everything I need, and I have started to pack everything up. I am actually taking a pit stop between L.A. and Peru to visit some family in Colombia. I'll be in Bogota for 3 days. I get into Cusco (or Cuzco...I've seen both spellings multiple times), Peru on June 2nd. I will be there until August 8th!

In Cusco, I will start my research for the summer. I am studying informal money lending in Peru, aka meeting and interviewing people that lend money to those whom either choose to or are unable to get loans from formal banks. I will be asking them about the interest rates they set, the number of loans granted, the value of the loans they lend, their target markets and screening protocols, among many other things. The idea is to study their business model and to track any trends that can be found in the informal lending sector. I am doing this research with the organization, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). They sent interns last summer to six different countries to do the same study. The goal is to collect definitive research on money lending around the world.

I am going to try to study at least three different regions throughout Peru (one rural, one urban, and at least one that has microfinance influence) in order to gain a more encompassing view of the sector. I am working with another student Heather, who goes to Yale and will also be starting her senior year in the fall. We have also been in contact with the IPA office in Cusco, and they have seemed very helpful thus far.

At summer's end, we will be writing a report on the aspects of money lending practices that we have discovered and identifying themes and conundrums in the business. We also will compile a STATA-compatible dataset of the data gathered during the research. We hope to get into contact with money lenders quickly after getting there as we only have 10 weeks to do all our research!