women's participation in micro-credit programs helps to increase women's empowerment. Credit program participation leads to … effects of male credit on women's empowerment were, at best, neutral, and at worse, decidedly negative. Male credit had a … negative effect on several arenas of women's empowerment, including physical mobility, access to savings and economic resources …

-- Institutional growth and MFI performance -- Dynamics of microfinance benefits -- Are borrowers overindebted? -- Role of microfinance … in poverty transition -- Diversification of income and employment : how does microfinance affect agriculture …? -- Distributional impacts -- Effects of noncredit participation -- Does microfinance pay off? -- Beyond ending poverty -- Appendix A …

Microfinance is often criticized for not adequately addressing seasonality and hard-core poverty. In Bangladesh, a … program known as PRIME was introduced in 2006 to address both concerns. Unlike regular microfinance, PRIME introduces a … microfinance scheme that offers a flexible repayment schedule and consumption smoothing, as well as production, loans. It targets …