Launched in 2001, the Thailand Village and Urban Community Fund (VF) provided almost US$2billion – a million baht for each of Thailand's 78,000 villages and wards – to provide working capital for locally-run rotating credit associations. Using data from the Thailand Socioeconomic Surveys of...

This paper evaluates the impact of the Thailand Village and Urban Revolving Fund on household expenditure, income, and assets. The revolving fund was launched in 2001 when the Government of Thailand promised to provide a million baht (about $22,500) to every village and urban community in...

The Thailand Village Fund is the second-largest microcredit scheme in the world. Nearly 80,000 elected local Village Fund committees administer loans that reach 30 percent of all households. The value of Village Fund loans has remained steady since 2006, even without new infusions of government...

Since its inception in 1991, the Egyptian Social Fund for Development (SFD) has spent about US$600 million supporting microcredit, and financing community development and infrastructure. Applying propensity-score matching using household survey data for 2004/05, this paper finds that SFD...

The “great recession” of 2008–09 affected Thailand significantly, reducing exports by 19% and tourist arrivals by 14%. Yet monthly survey data show, after controlling for household variables, that real consumption per capita rose in 2009 relative to 2008 for most groups, including the...

The Egyptian Social Fund for Development was established in 1991 with a mandate to reduce poverty. Since its inception, it has disbursed about $2.5 billion, of which nearly two-fifths was devoted to supporting microcredit and financing community development and infrastructure. This paper...

In 2009, buffeted by the great recession, Thai gross domestic product fell by 2.3 percent. Using monthly data from the socio-economic surveys of 2007-2010, this paper finds, after controlling for household variables, that real consumption per capita rose in 2009 relative to 2008 for most groups,...

The handbook on poverty and inequality provides tools to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty. It provides background materials for designing poverty reduction strategies. This book is intended for researchers and policy analysts involved in poverty research and policy...