Microfinance: leverage or quagmire?

Zbigniew Mierzwa

Review of Business and Economics Studies, 2016, issue 2, 15-52

Abstract: Whether microfinance is all that its proponents claim? Promoters have hailed microfinance as the silver bullet of development. Advocates say that providing small amounts of credit to the world’s poor can break their cycle of poverty. However, the mixed results of a wide array of impactassessments leave skeptics wondering whether microfinance really does alleviate poverty beyondanecdotal instances. Some experts have suggested that no more than five percent of microfinance institutions (MFIs) worldwide will ever be sustainable. Maybe, the reality is that microfinance may beguilty of over-promising and under-delivering, but it is still an effective development tool. A numberof studies have reached what is now perhaps an obvious conclusion: programs that focus on poverty alleviation rather than those that focus on financial results are more effective at reaching the verypoor. The world is still full of poor people, and the problem of underdevelopment remains one of the intractable challenges of the global economy. For the time being we only put questions. In the nextissues of journal we will try to find answers on these questions.

Keywords: МИКРОФИНАНСИРОВАНИЕ; УСТРАНЕНИЕ НИЩЕТЫ; МИКРОФИНАНСОВЫЕ ОРГАНИЗАЦИИ; ФИНАНСОВОЕ ВКЛЮЧЕНИЕ; СОЦИАЛЬНОЕ ВКЛЮЧЕНИЕ; СРЕДНИЙ КЛАСС; САМОЗАНЯТОСТЬ; КРАЙНЯЯ НИЩЕТА; МИКРОКРЕДИТ; ИНКЛЮЗИВНЫЙ ФИНАНСОВЫЙ СЕКТОР; ДОЛГОВАЯ ЛОВУШКА; MICROFINANCE; POVERTY ALLEVIATION; MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS; FINANCIAL INCLUSION; SOCIAL INCLUSION; MIDDLE CLASS; SELF-EMPLOYMENT; EXTREME POVERTY; MICROCREDIT; INCLUSIVE FINANCE SECTOR; DEBT-TRAP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:scn:031730:16894098

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