Quantitative analysis indicates that variation in use of regulated and unregulated financial services in a low-income area of Mexico City can only partially be attributed to differences in socio-economic variables including gender, employment, education and housing status. Qualitative evidence...

Political economy approaches to analyzing the efficiency of rural financial markets have focused on the role of power and social relations. Neo-classical institutional economics, on the other hand, has used information and transaction costs to explain performance. Recognizing the limitations of...

Policy emphasis for financial sector development has shifted away from microfinance and towards the development of 'inclusive financial markets'. But for inclusion to take place, policy must address barriers to access. This paper analyses the socio-economic, demographic and geographic factors...

This paper examines the tensions that exist in financial inclusion policy between donor approaches founded on market modernism and governments with more activist leanings. It draws on political economy analysis - now frequently used by donors themselves - to demonstrate the underlying dynamics...

Financial inclusion policy has been ignited globally by the rise of money transfer services over mobile telecommunications platforms. Explanations for the success of the leading example in Kenya have focussed on conditions of supply side development and the demand for domestic urban to rural...

In the context of calls for more nuanced understanding of marriage as a dynamic institution, this paper addresses a gap in the literature on intra-household financial management. It examines financial management systems and levels of co-operation among 51 married couples in Kenya. It first...

The rapid adoption of mobile money transfer (MMT) in East Africa, and Kenya in particular, is facilitating a nexus of inter-personal financial transfers which has hitherto been the least visible dimension of informal finance. At the same time, the success of capturing these flows into a formal...

This paper is based on work conducted by Imp-Act - a three-year action-research programme aiming to improve the quality of microfinance services and their impact on poverty. Learning from the experiences of 30 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in four continents, Imp-Act is developing and...

Local currencies (LCs) are seen as a means of achieving greater local economic and environmental sustainability by keeping value circulating locally. However, there is weak evidence regarding their success on this score, not least because their achievement of scale is rare. There is rather more...

Political economy approaches to analysing the efficiency of rural financial markets have focused on the role of power and social relations. Neo-classical institutional economics, on the other hand, has used information and transaction costs to explain performance. Recognizing the limitations of...