Access to finance and sound banking institutions are two critical elements in any attempt to promote economic development in least-developed countries. Nevertheless, only in recent years have existing relations between financial liberalization, banking practices and the economic performance of...

In this essay, we summarize the main features of Yunus' economic thought and discuss whether it is possible to conclude, as seems straightforward according to Yunus (1997), that microfinance is good for the poor and that it exemplifies a typical activity of social enterprise. To do this, we...

By starting from two recent books by Brookings, in this review we briefly argue for institutions: building processes aimed to provide rules, norms and standards for the collective governance of financial markets. Copyright Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, 2004