On the empirics of microfinance institutions and local economic development in Africa

Nixon S. Chekenya

Development Southern Africa, 2023, vol. 40, issue 6, 1234-1257

Abstract: The link between finance and growth is a well-researched area, yet this relationship at the local level has received little empirical scrutiny. We trace the operations of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in Africa. We examine the role played by MFIs on local economic development using a model capturing both local geography and MFIs dynamics for the periods 1992–2015. Our sample is representative of 2,170 MFIs operating in 144 cities, 154 towns, and 14 villages in Africa. Using night time data to capture economic growth, our key hypothesis is that MFIs drive local economic progress. Conditioning on the geographical location of MFIs, we find that the presence and density of MFIs increase as the growth in light density and the estimate retains its statistical significance. The results suggest that MFIs operations may foster local economic activity.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0376835X.2023.2224359 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:deveza:v:40:y:2023:i:6:p:1234-1257

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDSA20

DOI: 10.1080/0376835X.2023.2224359

Access Statistics for this article

Development Southern Africa is currently edited by Marie Kirsten

More articles in Development Southern Africa from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().