This paper explores the use of Internet, including social networks, e-government services and e-commerce from the perspective of the digital divide. First, it aims to find out what factors explain the digital divide, considered as a multidimensional concept. Second, the article aims to identify...

A poverty penalty arises when the poor pay more than the non-poor to access goods and services. An example is the cost to access credit. While still high, microcredit interest rates are lower than the interest rates charged by moneylenders. Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) usually justify the...

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) lend to the poor, fostering these individuals’ financial inclusion. However, microfinance clients suffer from high interest rates, a type of poverty penalty. Reducing margins and lowering interest rates should be a target for MFIs with a strong social...

This paper examines the dynamics between growth and profitability in an economic crisis context by considering the endogeneity of this relationship. It also analyzes the role of innovation and export intensity in the growth-profit relationship. Using a large firm-level dataset comprising Spanish...

A sample of 76 firms that operate in the Internet is studied in order to explore forms of identifying and measuring intangible assets in this area of business. The firms meet three conditions: operate in the Internet, have available accounting information, and be quoted in the stock exchange....

This paper addresses an important issue in DEA: the selection of inputs and outputs to be included in a model. A two-stage methodology is suggested. The first stage applies a methodology based on comparing reduced models that do not include a particular input/output with extended models that...

DEA has been extensively used to measure the efficiency of financial institutions. Its advantages are clearly understood. But there are many unresolved problems. There are various views based on different modelling philosophies of what constitutes inputs and outputs in a financial institution....

This paper sets out to determine the strategic positioning of Spanish Savings Banks, using datadrawn from published financial information. Its starting point is the idea of the strategic group, regularlyemployed in Business Management to explain the relationships between firms within the same...

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) provide loans to low income individuals. The credit scoring systems of MFIs, if they exist, are strictly financial. Although many MFIs consider the social impact of their loans, they do not incorporate formal systems to estimate this social impact. This paper...