In the microfinance industry the idea of “empowerment” is often valued as a means to encourage female emancipation from male domination. This paper’s main purpose is to draw on women’s testimonies and narratives to highlight the fundamental importance within these processes of women’s...

In most developed countries, regulators have imposed loan ceilings to subsidized microfinance institutions (MFIs). Micro-entrepreneurs in need of above-ceiling loans are left with the co-financing option, which means securing the aboveceiling share of the loan with a regular bank, and getting a...

This paper compares the loans granted to male and female entrepreneurs by a French microfinance institution (MFI). The sample period is split in two: before and after the MFI implemented France's regulatory EUR 10,000 loan ceiling. In the first period, the MFI does not co-finance projects with...

The evidence on gender discrimination in lending remains controversial. To capture gender biases in banks’ loan allocations, we observe the impact on the applicants of a microfinance institution (MFI) and exploit the natural experiment of a regulatory change imposing a strict EUR 10,000 loan...

There is now an increasing consensus that the effects of microfinance on self-employment are limited, with two common interpretations. The microeconomic approach suggests that the poor lack the skills, the resources and the motivation to start their own business. The macroeconomic approach...

We estimate the impact of workforce diversity on productivity, wages and productivity-wage gaps (i.e. profits) using detailed Belgian linked employer-employee panel data. Findings, robust to a large set of covariates, specifications and econometric issues, show that educational (age) diversity...

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...

Product diversification involving simultaneously microcredit, savings or insurance services –also called combined microfinance (CMF)- can both leverage and challenge policy outcomes. This paper reviews two complementary questions in this regard: Which are the possible effects of CMF on public...

We use an innovative methodology to analyze social responsibility in double bottom line institutions such as microfinance institutions. We provide empirical evidence on the distribution of the generated surplus between the key stakeholders of one of the most famous MFIs worldwide: Banco...