Microfinance institutions (MFIs) lend to the poor, fostering these individuals’ financial inclusion. However, microfinance clients suffer from high interest rates, a type of poverty penalty. Reducing margins and lowering interest rates should be a target for MFIs with a strong social...

This work provides an analysis and an optimization model of the spatial impact for the urban policies of local governments in terms of urban regeneration and rehabilitation of degraded historic areas. From the amount invested and state intervention locations, an impact index is put forward. The...

The way the supply of public services and social insurance – thus, the traditional Italian welfare system – are organized is today strongly debated. The pressure for fiscal consolidation, coming from the international community – first from finance, then from politics – and the need of...

IThe problem of efficient functioning of the economy of Russian company towns is an absolute deterrent Russia's economic development in general. The main tool for monitoring and risk management in single municipalities currently serves comprehensive investment plan, developed on the basis of...

This study aims to achieve some originality about the link between land use for both residential and productive purposes and the role played by some specific local taxes related to the territory, including the urbanization costs. More specifically, in the paper a methodological approach,...

The purpose of this article is to analyse the efficiency of the repayment incentive mechanisms used for individual microcredit, the guarantor mechanism in particular. Little academic research has been devoted to this instrument whereas it is very frequently used. Churchill (1999) notably...

Program participation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the success of housing policies such as mortgage assistance for distressed homeowners. Low rates of take-up of available assistance among eligible homeowners have hampered the potential success of programs such as the U.S....

At the national level, business starts and housing prices both fell dramatically over the 2007–2009 period. Using a proprietary database of business starts this paper quantitatively models the interaction between house price and business starts from 2005 to 2009. We identify the impact by...

Small enterprises are a key source of employment, economic growth, innovation and productivity in advanced as well as emerging economies and as such they are a crucial sector of an economy. Access to financing plays an important role for the small enterprise sector in any economy. Based on...

Most cities enjoy some autonomy over how they tax their residents, and that autonomy is typically exercised by multiple municipal governments within a given city. In this chapter, we document patterns of city-level taxation across countries, and we review the literature on a number of salient...