Construcción de un modelo de elección binaria para determinar la demanda de crédito en el Ecuador durante la crisis por COVID-19

Abstract

The impact caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the various restriction measures adopted by governments around the world to contain it, have caused an economic and social crisis without precedent. In Ecuador, thousands of workers were laid off in the context of the quarantine, directly affecting household income. In this sense, identifying the characteristics of the workers who most need to benefit from a financing plan is extremely important for the planning and correct application of public policies that help mitigate the adverse effects of the crisis. For this reason, this research work specifies a binary choice model that allows identifying the main determinants of the demand for credit in Ecuador during the COVID-19 crisis. Two models (logit and probit) were estimated, finding that the logistic estimation is preferred to explain the demand phenomenon. Finally, the results establish demographic variables such as: age, gender, marital status, and number of members in the household as explanatory factors of the probability of needing a loan; in addition, to socioeconomic and financial variables such as: employment situation, type of dwelling, economic activity, variation in income, variation in expenses, having or not having savings and having or not having debts.