Microfinance and Poverty
Author : Hege Gulli
Publisher : IDB
Page : 134 pages
File Size : 14,67 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781886938458
Catalysing Pro-poor Development, the Role of Savings and Savings Organizations
Author :
Publisher : IIED
Page : 27 pages
File Size : 37,57 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Housing subsidies
ISBN : 1843695499
Book Description
Analyses the impact of the savings and credit organizations on the poverty alleviation.
The New World of Microenterprise Finance
Author : María Otero
Publisher :
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 23,54 MB
Release : 1994
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN :
Book Description
Introducing a new direction for microenterprise finance, contributors argue that one can create sustainable and viable financial institutions that give the poor greater access to financial services. Covering Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the cases outline successful programs such as: the Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI); BancoSol in Bolivia; the Association of Solidarity Groups in Colombia; and the Kenya Rural Enterprise Programme.
Due Diligence
Author : David Roodman
Publisher : CGD Books
Page : 388 pages
File Size : 37,50 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1933286539
Book Description
The idea that small loans can help poor families build businesses and exit poverty has blossomed into a global movement. The concept has captured the public imagination, drawn in billions of dollars, reached millions of customers, and garnered a Nobel Prize. Radical in its suggestion that the poor are creditworthy and conservative in its insistence on individual accountability, the idea has expanded beyond credit into savings, insurance, and money transfers, earning the name microfinance. But is it the boon so many think it is? Readers of David Roodman's openbook blog will immediately recognize his thorough, straightforward, and trenchant analysis. Due Diligence, written entirely in public with input from readers, probes the truth about microfinance to guide governments, foundations, investors, and private citizens who support financial services for poor people. In particular, it explains the need to deemphasize microcredit in favor of other financial services for the poor.
Returns to capital in microenterprises : evidence from a field experiment
Author : Christopher Woodruff, David McKenzie, Suresh de Mel
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 37 pages
File Size : 48,25 MB
Release : 2007
Category :
ISBN :
Book Description
Abstract: Small and informal firms account for a large share of employment in developing countries. The rapid expansion of microfinance services is based on the belief that these firms have productive investment opportunities and can enjoy high returns to capital if given the opportunity. However, measuring the return to capital is complicated by unobserved factors such as entrepreneurial ability and demand shocks, which are likely to be correlated with capital stock. The authors use a randomized experiment to overcome this problem and to measure the return to capital for the average microenterprise in their sample, regardless of whether they apply for credit. They accomplish this by providing cash and equipment grants to small firms in Sri Lanka, and measuring the increase in profits arising from this exogenous (positive) shock to capital stock. After controlling for possible spillover effects, the authors find the average real return to capital to be 5.7 percent a month, substantially higher than the market interest rate. They then examine the heterogeneity of treatment effects to explore whether missing credit markets or missing insurance markets are the most likely cause of the high returns. Returns are found to vary with entrepreneurial ability and with measures of other sources of cash within the household, but not to vary with risk aversion or uncertainty.
Can the Poor Save?
Author : Mark Schreiner
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 387 pages
File Size : 10,63 MB
Release : 2011-12-31
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0202363112
Book Description
Many policymakers argue that the best poverty policy not only provides cash to the poor for subsistence but also incentives and structures that encourage long-term social and economic improvement. As part of this, they make the case for Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), a new policy proposal designed to help the poor save and to build assets. This book explores IDAs to determine their effectiveness. IDAs are matched savings accounts targeted on low-income, low-wealth individuals. Savings in IDAs are used for home ownership, post-secondary education, small business development, and other purposes. Do IDAs work? If they do, for whom? And does how an IDA is designed determine savings outcomes? This volume is the first analysis of matched savings by the poor to use data from monthly bank statements. It comes at a critical time, as debate rages over the merits of individual social security accounts. IDAs also respond to policy that is becoming more asset based and less inclusive of the poor. The authors argue for the efficacy of IDAs to counter this tendency. They find that while savings outcomes vary among participants, no characteristics (such as low income or public assistance) preclude saving. They examine effects of IDA design (the match rate, savings targets, and the use of automatic transfer) on savings results and analyze factors that influence varying rates of saving and spending over time. They conclude that financial education and other support services, though costly, improve savings performance. To address the issue of cost they suggest a two-tier system of IDA design, one with broad access and simple services and the other with targeted access and intensive services. Can the Poor Save? offers a wealth of lessons to those interested in saving and asset accumulation among the poor. It not only breaks new ground in the scientific study of savings behavior, but also offers concrete, evidence-based recommendations to improve policies designed to encourage the poor to save and how to make such policies more inclusive.
Microfinance Handbook
Author : Joanna Ledgerwood
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 31,54 MB
Release : 1998-12-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0821384317
Book Description
The purpose of the 'Microfinance Handbook' is to bring together in a single source guiding principles and tools that will promote sustainable microfinance and create viable institutions.
Institutions, Social Norms and Economic Development
Author : Jean-Philippe Platteau
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 409 pages
File Size : 21,17 MB
Release : 2015-12-08
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1136600450
Book Description
In order for economic specialization to develop, it is important that well-defined property rights are established and that suspicion and fear of fraud do not pervade transactions. Such conditions cannot be created ex abrubto, but must somehow evolve. What needs to develop is not only suitable practices and rules themselves, but also the public agencies and moral environment without which generalized trust is difficult to establish. The cultural endowment of societies as they have developed over their particular histories is bound to play a major role in this regard, and the matter of cultual endowment is one of the central themes of this book. On the other hand, division of labour does not only require well-enforced property rights and trust in economic dealings. It is also critically conditioned by the thickness of economic space, itself dependent on population density. This provides the second major theme of the volume: market development, including the development of private property rights is not possible, or will remain very incomplete, if populations are thinly spread over large areas of land. The book makes special reference to sub-Saharan Africa.
Do Micro-Credit, Micro-Savings and Micro-Leasing Serve As Effective Financial Inclusion Interventions Enabling Poor People, and Especially Women, to Engage in Meaningful Economic Opportunities in Low- and Middle-Income Countries?
Author : Ruth Stewart
Publisher :
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 12,5 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Microfinance
ISBN : 9781907345371
Book Description
Portfolios of the Poor
Author : Daryl Collins
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 32,48 MB
Release : 2009-04-20
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1400829968
Book Description
Nearly forty percent of humanity lives on an average of two dollars a day or less. If you've never had to survive on an income so small, it is hard to imagine. How would you put food on the table, afford a home, and educate your children? How would you handle emergencies and old age? Every day, more than a billion people around the world must answer these questions. Portfolios of the Poor is the first book to systematically explain how the poor find solutions to their everyday financial problems. The authors conducted year-long interviews with impoverished villagers and slum dwellers in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa--records that track penny by penny how specific households manage their money. The stories of these families are often surprising and inspiring. Most poor households do not live hand to mouth, spending what they earn in a desperate bid to keep afloat. Instead, they employ financial tools, many linked to informal networks and family ties. They push money into savings for reserves, squeeze money out of creditors whenever possible, run sophisticated savings clubs, and use microfinancing wherever available. Their experiences reveal new methods to fight poverty and ways to envision the next generation of banks for the "bottom billion." Indispensable for those in development studies, economics, and microfinance, Portfolios of the Poor will appeal to anyone interested in knowing more about poverty and what can be done about it.
