? F35, G21, G28, O54, O57

The microfinance revolution has allowed more than 150 million poor people around the world to receive small loans without collateral, build up assets, and buy insurance. The idea that providing access to reliable and affordable financial services can have powerful economic and social effects has...

The microfinance revolution has allowed more than 150 million poor people around the world to receive small loans without collateral, build up assets, and buy insurance. The idea that providing access to reliable and affordable financial services can have powerful economic and social effects has...

This paper sheds light on a poorly understood phenomenon in microfinance which is often referred to as "mission drift": A tendency reviewd by numerous microfinance institutions to extend larger average loan sizes in the process of scaling-up. . We argue that this phenomenon is not driven by...

In this paper we argue that the promotion of women in microfinance initiatives and the bias against men is taking place in the absence of solid empirical evidence on the effects of this approach in the balance of powers in households and on the health, education and well-being of all household...

In this chapter we argue that the endogenous growth model with quality-improving innovations provides a framework for analyzing the determinants of long-run growth and convergence that is versatile, simple and empirically useful. Versatile, as the same framework can be used to analyze how growth...

This paper investigates the effects of the education level, product market rigidities and employment protection legislation on growth. It exploits macro-panel data for OECD countries. For countries close to the technological frontier, education and rigidities are significantly related to TFP...

We survey the theoretical and empirical literature on decentralization within firms. We first discuss how the concept of incomplete contracts shapes our views about the organization of decision-making within firms. We then overview the empirical evidence on the determinants of decentralization...