Microfinance and common goods: A study of Brazilian community development banks

Marek Hudon and Camille Meyer

No 13-049, Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: Inclusive financial sectors are essential in terms of poverty alleviation. While microcredit can be governed as a private good, self-managed civil society organizations propose an alternative way of managing financial services. Brazil's Community Development Banks (CDBs) are a growing and dynamic manifestations of these nonprofit organizations. Based on field research in Brazil, this article uses the Elinor Ostrom's design principles of successful self-governing common-pool resource institutions to analyze CDBs' microcredit system. Our results suggest that the characteristics of private goods could be reconsidered when they are governed by community self-managed enterprises. They become hybrid goods by mixing the characteristics of private and commons goods. Thus, specific institutional arrangements and the creation of public spaces make it possible to strengthen the community properties of nonprofit microcredit

Keywords: common goods; Ostrom; Community Development Banks; microfinance; governance; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 p.
Date: 2013-12-16
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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