Surplus distribution and characteristics of social enterprises: Evidence from microfinance

Marek Hudon and Anaïs Périlleux ()

The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 2014, vol. 54, issue 2, 147-157

Abstract: The issue of surplus distribution has hardly been analyzed in the context of the social economy. This paper highlights the main drivers of distribution between various stakeholders of microfinance institutions (MFIs), which are an example of social enterprises. We focus on three major variables: size, governance structure and subsidies. Our results show that the size of the institution is the main indicator of the surplus that the organization keeps as a self-financial margin. Moreover, MFIs with a cooperative ownership structure allocate a larger part of their surplus to their employees, whereas non-profit organizations and shareholder-firm MFIs do not allocate their surplus in a significantly different way among their main stakeholders. Finally, we do not find any clear-cut effect of subsidies on the surplus allocation process.

Keywords: Microfinance; Social enterprise; Surplus; Governance; Size; Subsidies; Cooperatives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 O16 O50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:54:y:2014:i:2:p:147-157

DOI: 10.1016/j.qref.2013.10.002

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