One of the decisive but often overlooked factors in the creation of the East Asian ‘economic miracle’ was the part played by a variety of heterodox sub-national state, community and cooperatively owned and controlled financial systems, institutions and lending models. Beginning with Japan...

The poverty reduction and developmental role of land titles has been a contested issue since the concept was popularised in the early 2000s by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto and the World Bank. Among other things, land titles were held to provide vital local economic development impetus...

Academic analyses and impact evaluation studies produced by the international development community almost all conclude that the microfinance model has made an important net contribution to the economic and social recovery of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter Bosnia). However, as we now...

Foreword / James K. Galbraith -- Introduction: setting the scene / Milford Bateman and Kate Maclean -- Background -- The political economy of microfinance / Milford Bateman -- Poverty reduction or the financialization of poverty? / Maren Duvendack and Philip Mader -- Seduction -- Pop development...

Financial technology, or simply ‘fin-tech', is increasingly seen as one of the key tools to facilitate poverty reduction and local economic development. One article in particular by Tavneet Suri and William Jack published in the leading publication Science has played a hugely influential role...

There is a growing consensus that the historical evidence shows that development and growth require the impetus provided by a functioning developmental state. Originally conceived through East Asian examples (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) as a ‘top-down' intervention undertaken by a pilot...

An overview -- Introduction / Milford Bateman, Stephanie Blankenburg and Richard Kozul-Wright -- Development prospects in an era of financialization / Richard Kozul-Wright -- Microcredit and development / Milford Bateman -- Country case studies -- Looking through the glass, darkly : microcredit...

This paper examines the spectacular rise of 'fintech' (financial technology), an innovation that constitutes an historic discontinuity in the structure, operations and conduct of financial systems everywhere. We provide a much-needed corrective to the rapidly proliferating myths and falsehoods...