Microfinance institutions have proved the possibility of providing reliable banking services to poor customers. Their second aim is to do so in a commercially-viable way. This paper analyzes the tensions and opportunities of microfinance as it embraces the market, drawing on a data set that...

Recent evidence suggests only modest social and economic impacts of microfinance. Favorable cost-benefit ratios then depend on low costs. This paper calculates the costs of microcredit and other elements of the microcredit business model using proprietary data on 1,335 microfinance institutions...

Leading advocates for microfinance have put forward an enticing quot;win-winquot; proposition: microfinance institutions that follow theprinciples of good banking will also be those that alleviate the most poverty. This vision forms the core of widely-circulatedquot;best practices,quot; but as a...

Microfinance has been heralded as an effective way to address imperfections in credit markets. But from a theoretical perspective, the success of microfinance contracts has puzzling elements. In particular, the group-based mechanisms often employed are vulnerable to free-riding and collusion,...

Microfinance has been heralded as an effective way to address imperfections in credit markets. But from a theoretical perspective, the success of microfinance contracts has puzzling elements. In particular, the group-based mechanisms often employed are vulnerable to free-riding and collusion,...

To analyze the prospects for expanding financial access to the poor, bank professionals assessed 1,438 households in six provinces in Indonesia to judge their creditworthiness. About 40 percent of poor households were judged creditworthy according to the criteria of Indonesia's largest...

Microlending is growing in Eastern Europe, Russia and China as a flexible means of widening access to financial services, both to help alleviate poverty and to encourage private-sector activity. We describe mechanisms that allow these programmes to successfully penetrate new segments of credit...

We conducted an experimental intervention in unelectrified areas of northern Bangladesh to investigate the effectiveness of solar products in improving children's educational achievement. We found that treated households substituted solar lanterns for kerosene-based lighting products, helping to...

This paper investigates the relationship between sectoral growth patterns and employment outcomes. A broad cross-country analysis reveals that in middle-income countries, employment responds more to growth in less productive and more labor-intensive sectors. Employment in middle-income countries...