Microfinance (MF) has grown over the last two decades into an important sub-field of development studies. This special issue of <italic>Oxford Development Studies</italic> explores the contributions of MF, drawing particularly on research conducted in India. After a brief overview of the emergence of MF as a...

While much research has addressed the impact of microcredit on poverty, less attention has been paid to inequality. This paper draws on research on the Zambian Copperbelt to show how impact on income distribution depends upon who obtains loans, who graduates to larger loans, who exits and group...

The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India. By Oliver Mendelsohn and Marika Vicziany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp.xviii + 289. £50 and £16.95. ISBN 0 521 55362 8 and 55671 6 Development as Process: Concepts and Methods for Working with...

Is debt reduction a gift to future generations? The answer depends upon how indebted governments use the extra room for manoeuvre it confers upon them. The paper explores this issue through a historical counterfactual case study. In 1991 a new Zambian government was democratically elected on a...

This paper appraises options for research relating to microfinance in India, doing so in the broad context of rival macro pressures to accelerate economic growth, maintain political order, reduce poverty and adapt to climate change. This paper first set out a general well-being regime framework...

What does talk of wellbeing offer international development? Four possible answers are explored. First, it offers discursive space for analysing conflicting policy priorities to the extent that they are based on different assumptions about what it means for a person to 'be well' and about how...

The paper draws on five case studies to explore potential benefits and barriers to horizontal networking to promote impact assessment of microfinance. The papers main aim is to stimulate further discussion of this issue. But some tentative conclusion are drawn about factors likely to contribute...