Evaluating the distributive impacts of a micro-credit intervention

Most analyses of randomized controlled trials of development interventions estimate an average treatment effect. However, the aggregate impact on welfare also depends on distributional effects. We propose a simple approach to evaluate efficiency-equity trade-offs, that follow in the utilitarian tradition of Atkinson (1970). The method does not impose additional assumptions or data requirements beyond those needed to estimate the average treatment effect. We illustrate the approach using data from a credit delivery experiment we implemented in West Bengal, India.