Microfinance is generally associated with high repayment rates. However, it is not clear whether the success of microfinance results only from the use of group lending or is also due to other mechanisms such as peer sanctioning or dynamic incentives induced by long-term relationships that are...

Les fonds à capital garanti proposés par les institutions financières connaissent une grande popularité. Pourtant, ce type de placement peut souvent être mis en œuvre facilement par l’investisseur individuel à moindres frais via un recours direct aux marchés financiers. Sur base d'un...

En Afrique subsaharienne, les zones agricoles et rurales abritent plus de trois quarts de la population et contribuent pour la grande part à l’emploi, au PIB, aux recettes d’exportations et à l’offre alimentaire. Dès lors, le financement des activités qui se développent dans ces zones...

How do women leaders such as board members and top managers influence the social performance of organizations? This paper addresses the issue by exploiting a unique database released by a Senegalese network of 36 financial cooperatives sharing identical governance characteristics and placed...

In theory, investors choosing to invest only in socially responsible entities restrict their investment universe and should thus be penalized in a mean-variance framework. When computed, this penalty is usually viewed as valid for all socially responsible investors. This paper shows however that...

This paper details a survey methodology on technology-based small firms (TBSF) in Belgium. The survey’s objective is to better understand the factors underlying the creation and development of firms with high growth potentials. In this respect it focuses on the socio-economic factors...

Cet article examine l’évolution des besoins en régulation du secteur des assurances. Celui-ci tend vers le secteur bancaire si bien que la frontière entre les 2 intermédiaires financiers s’estompe. La littérature assurantielle, au contraire de la littérature bancaire, est peu...

Solvency II, la nouvelle réglementation du secteur des assurances, est en préparation au sein de la Commission Européenne. La version définitive du texte est prévue fin 2008 pour une mise en application au sein des entreprises début janvier 2010. Solvency II se base sur 3 piliers, à...

The role of insurance sector has grown in importance. While there is a plethora of academic literature on the needs for a banking regulation, literature on insurance regulation is scarce and mainly focused on asymmetry issues. In this paper, we describe the reasons for an insurance regulation....

This paper aims at gaining deeper understanding of the possible effects of combined microfinance (CMF) on social and economic performance outcomes. By means of a case-study on the City of Bridgetown (COB), one of the leading credit unions in Barbados, it explores the possible limits, challenges...