Emphasizes the value of access to financial services for the very poor through partnerships between banks and local financial institutions.

This article reviews trends in poverty, economic policies, and growth in a sample of African countries during the 1990s, drawing on the better household data now available. Experiences have varied. Some countries have seen sharp drops in income poverty, whereas others have witnessed marked...

Take-up of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India decreases with basis risk between insurance payouts and income fluctuations, increases with household wealth, and decreases with binding credit constraints. These results are consistent with the...

Economists seeking explanations for the global financial crisis of 1997-99 are reaching consensus that a major factor was weak financial institutions, which resulted in part from inadequate government regulations. At the same time many developing countries are struggling with an overregulated...

The intensity of the crisis in financial markets has surprised nearly everyone. The authors search out the root causes of the crisis, distinguishing them from scapegoating explanations that have been used in policy circles to divert attention from the underlying breakdown of incentives....

This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and...

Many smallholder families are exceptionally prone to potentially catastrophic decreases in their incomes and access to food. Over the past decade, therefore, policy makers and economists have increasingly focused on potential mechanisms for expanding risk management strategies available to those...

PART I: GENERAL ASPECTS -- Chapter 1: Sustainable Finance in Europe: Setting the Scene -- Chapter 2: The European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan and Other International Initiatives -- Chapter 3: Sustainable Digital Finance and the Pursuit of Environmental Sustainability -- PART...