Microfinance across the globe is being practiced as a tool to mitigate poverty and chiefly as an empowerment tool to uplift the downtrodden. The paper has uniquely established that Self Help Groups in India have been significantly successful in achieving the objective of economic development of...

This study examined the range of strategies and initiatives governments have used to leverage affordable housing supply across the continuum of housing needs (i.e. from social housing to affordable rental and home ownership) in a constrained funding and increasingly market driven context across...

The paper contends that more attention should be paid to micro savings in view of multiple ways in which it can help poor to deal with economic insecurity. The paper presents information to show that while microsaving programs have spread, their full potential is far from being realized. It...

The paper suggests that, rather than through its narrow, direct financial impact, microfinance may prove to be more potent in reducing insecurity and poverty through its indirect, broader impact leading to a more egalitarian initial endowment distribution that is necessary for the "take-off" of...

This paper shows that government of India supported microfinance programme under SGSY scheme is partially effective to reduce poverty of the rural households. Few expansion of National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme plays here the supportive role. Taking the help of Natural Experiment it is...

This research modelled five alternative pathways to funding social housing and found the ‘capital grant' model, supplemented by efficient financing, provides the most cost-effective model for Australia. The research also established the current and future unmet need for social housing in...

Global concern on financial involvement of country citizens has been increasing over the years. An improved financial sector transforms to economic growth and greater achievement of equality among citizens. On average financial literacy levels of men are far greater than that of women. The study...

The history of the support by society of the aged is discussed in cross cultural and historical context. Various cultural traditions are compared with the forms developed in complex societies from ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome, to China, the Aztec, Inca and Maya, to those of religious...

This paper analyzes whether the political connections of listed firms in the United States affect the cost and terms of loan contracts. Using a hand-collected data set of the political connections of S&P 500 companies over the 2003-2008 time period, we find that the cost of bank loans is...

Self-help Group is a small economically homogeneous and affinity group of rural poor which is voluntarily ready to contribute to a common fund to be lent to its members as per group decision, which works for group's solidarity, self group, awareness, social and economic empowerment through...