We may only just have seen new studies looking at the impact of microfinance. But the topic is not new. This literature review presents a short selection of studies on microfinance, its context, and its impact on the poor.
Microsavings seem to do much the same for the poor as microcredit (i.e. smooth consumption and investment). But they might do so at a lower cost, and bring additional benefits as well.
The failure in microfinance has been that it has for too long believed in its own rhetoric of poverty alleviation. Now that research proves otherwise, the debate is no longer about what impact microfinance has on society, but how society can use microfinance as a business.
The NYTimes finds a clear link between subprime lending and race inequality in America, suggesting even in developing countries the availability of credit, by itself, is no solution to poverty.
YaleGlobal’s Bardhan suggests China and India’s poverty reduction miracle may have less to do with economic growth and globalization than previously thought.
I have written a lot recently on inequality – in India and in Asia. The basic point has been the same – that inequality is bad from a social and moral point, but (as the ADB argues in its report on Asia) also from an economic point of view. In the same vien I pulled [...]