Group liability is often portrayed as the key innovation that led to the explosion of the microcredit movement, which … authors worked with a bank in the Philippines to conduct a field experiment to examine these issues. They randomly assigned …

environment conducive to the development of sustainable microfinance institutions. The experience of Ghana and the Philippines … Regulating Microfinance Institutions," WPS 2061, February 1999) presented a regulatory framework that identifies thresholds in … financial intermediation activities that trigger a requirement for a microfinance institution to satisfy external or mandatory …

Regulation allows microfinance institutions to evolve more fully into banks, particularly for institutions aiming to … draw on a new database that combines high-quality financial data on 245 of the world s largest microfinance institutions … profitability. The pattern is consistent with the notion that profit-oriented microfinance institutions absorb the cost of …

This paper describes important trade-offs that microfinance practitioners, donors, and regulators navigate. Drawing … evidence from large, global surveys of microfinance institutions, the authors find a basic tension between meeting social goals … and maximizing financial performance. For example, non-profit microfinance institutions make far smaller loans on average …

a new microcredit product. A brochure with the same content but two different covers was randomly distributed among male …

Microfinance institutions have proved the possibility of providing reliable banking services to poor customers. Their … second aim is to do so in a commercially-viable way. This paper analyzes the tensions and opportunities of microfinance as it … embraces the market, drawing on a data set that includes 346 of the world's leading microfinance institutions and covers nearly …

, though, is at the heart of the promise that microfinance can deliver poverty reduction while not relying on ongoing subsidy …Microfinance contracts have proven able to secure high rates of loan repayment in the face of limited liability and …