This paper looks at ‘the other side’ of the much-celebrated microfinance revolution, namely its potential impact on the conditions of access to credit for nonmembers (the residual market). It uses a standard adverse selection framework to show the advantage of group lending as a single...

This paper develops an adverse selection model which uncovers two mechanisms whereby Grameen-style peer grouping systems can trigger lower interest rates. In one extreme scenario, where participant borrowers do not have prior information about the type of their peers, lower interest rate are...

This paper provides a unified theory to explain the onset of the financial crisis in 1998 and the striking economic recovery in Russia and the former Soviet Union afterwards. Before the crisis, the banking sector in these economies was stuck in a development trap in which the banking sector is...

This paper provides a unified analysis for the onset of the 1998 financial crisis and the strong economic recovery afterward in Russia and other former Soviet Union countries. Before the crisis a banking failure arose owing to the coexistence of a lemons credit market and high government...

This paper extends Ghatak (1999)'s base model of group lending with asymmetric information by allowing individuals to differ both in their exogenous risk type and in their endogenous effort level. We find that joint liability leads to positive assortative matching in both a non-cooperative and a...

This paper explains both the onset of the financial crisis in 1998 and the striking economic recovery afterwards in Russia and other Former Soviet Union (FSU) economies. Before the crisis banks do not lend to the real sector of the economy and firms use non-bank finance, including trade credits...

The share of off-balance sheet activity (OBSa) in the future of banking business has been questioned by the use of low-quality assets in this activity. Nevertheless, this paper puts forward the adverse selection hypothesis, which counter argues that more stable banks engage in OBSa to a larger...

We use a unique firm-level survey database compiled by the World Bank to examine the drivers of discouraged small businesses in various developing economies around the world. We confirm that older and larger firms are less likely to be discouraged and that the level of competition and the...