the respondent’s personal network. These network data are then
used to create measures of the individual social capital of borrowers.
The empirical part of this work focuses on the influence of
social capital on repayment behaviour of rural borrowers. While
Ahlin and Townsend (2007) have applied the concept of social capital,
albeit using a different definition, to joint liability groups in
Thailand, no research so far has applied the concept of social capital
to repayment behaviour of individuals in the rural credit market
in Southeast Asia.2 The case-study countries here are Thailand and
Vietnam. In both research countries, the Government offers various
creditlines intended to foster the socio-economic development
of the rural population. In Thailand most of these credit lines are
administered by the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives
(BAAC). Furthermore, the Thai government manages different
lending schemes such as the One Million Baht Village Fund and
the Poverty Eradication Fund. About 80 percent of all villages in
Thailand have access to the One Million Baht Village Fund (NSO,
2003). The Vietnamese Government offers various credit lines to
support rural households. Most of these are issued by the Vietnam
Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) or the government based mass
organizations. Another major player in the rural loans market is
the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (VBARD).
In both countries, formal and semiformal lenders have enormous
outreach but with a trade-off: many oftheir borrowers are not creditworthy.
Rescheduling of loans is therefore common, ultimately