# **<u>Appendix B: Variable definitions</u>**

Data used in this paper come from two surveys as well as from administrative records of our partner financial institution (OIBM). We conducted a baseline survey from March to April 2009 and an endline survey from July to September 2010.

All variables that are created from survey data are top coded at the 99th percentile for variables with a positive range and bottom and top coded at the 1st and 99th percentile respectively for variables with a range that spans both negative and positive values. All figures in money terms are in Malawi Kwacha (MK).

# <u>Baseline characteristics (from baseline survey):</u>

_Number of members per club_ is the number of listed club members per information provided by the buyer companies (Alliance One and Limbe Leaf). Not all club members were interviewed.

_Female_ equals 1 for female respondents and 0 for male respondents.

_Married_ equals 1 for married respondents and 0 for respondents who are single, widowed, or divorced.

_Age_ is respondent’s age in years.

_Years of education_ is the respondent’s years of completed schooling.

_Household size_ is the number of people counted as members of the respondent’s household at the time of the baseline survey.

_Asset index_ is an index based on the first principal component of the number of items owned of 14 common non-financial, non-livestock assets and indicators of presence of 4 major types of housing characteristics (iron sheet roof, glass windows, concrete floor, electricity connection).

_Livestock index_ is an index based on the first principal component of the number of animals owned of 7 common types of livestock.

_Land under cultivation_ is the total of area of land under cultivation, measured in acres, for the late-2008 planting season.

_Proceeds from crop sales_ is the sum of sales from maize and tobacco in the 2008 harvest.

_Cash spent on inputs_ is the total amount of cash spent – excluding the value of input packages that are part of a loan -- on seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and hired labor for the 20082009 planting season _Has bank account_ is 1 if a household member has an account with a formal financial institution, and 0 if not.

_Savings in accounts and cash_ is the sum of current savings with formal institutions and in cash at home.

_Hyperbolic_ is 1 if the respondent exhibited strictly more patience in one month, hypothetical monetary trade-offs set 12 months in the future than in the same trade-offs set in the present, and 0 otherwise. See section 5 above for more details.

_Patient now, impatient later_ is 1 if the respondent exhibited strictly _less_ patience in one month, hypothetical monetary trade-offs set 12 months in the future than in the same trade-offs set in the presence and 0 otherwise.

_Net transfers made in past 12m_ is the total of transfers made to the social network minus the sum of transfers received from the social network, summed across six categories (social events, health shocks, education of children, agricultural inputs, hired labor and ‘other’).

_Missing value for formal savings and cash_ is 1 if the variable “ _Savings in accounts and cash”_ is missing and 0 if it has valid values.

_Missing value for time preferences_ is 1 if the respondent has missing values for the time preferences variables (“ _Hyperbolic_ ” and “ _Patient now,impatient later_ ”) is missing, and 0 if these variables have valid values.

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