"Using a unique sample of net domestic product data for districts in India, I investigate the connection between banking sector development, human capital, and economic growth at the sub-national level. Using disaggregate data avoids many of the omitted variable problems that plague...

"With the exception of South Africa, local financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa remain underdeveloped and small, with a particular dearth of financing with maturity terms commensurate with the medium- to long-term horizons of infrastructure projects. But as financial market reforms gather...

The objective of this report is to present an assessment of the current legal, regulatory, and supervisory framework in Albania for microfinance, as well as an assessment of institutions rendering microfinance services (MFIs), including the Savings and Credit Associations (SCAs) and credit...

The reform of the Rural Credit Unions (RCUs) currently faces a number of major inter-related challenges. These must be resolved if China is to create a 'modern rural financial system'. The key issues facing policy-makers are: Consolidating independent shareholder ownership in order to realize...

The first savings and loan associations (SLAs - mutuelles d'epargne et de credit) were established in Madagascar in 1993 under a pilot project supported by the World Bank. By the time the project closed in December 1997, 54 SLAs had been established in four regions, Toamasina, Lac Alaotra,...

This paper provides an assessment of the Polish funded pension system and the quality of the regulatory framework for the accumulation phase. There are two elements that distinguish the Polish pension fund portfolios from other reforming countries': the relatively high component of domestic...

"The authors test competing theories of capital structure choices using firm-level data on firm borrowings. The majority of firms in the dataset are privately owned, young, micro or small and medium enterprise (SME) firms concentrated in the service sector. In general, the financing pattern of...