While the global economy suffered one of its worst declines in modern history, many countries actually increased their defense budgets. The U.S dramatically increased its military spending between 2007 and 2009, and the Obama administration plans large increases to follow. The State of Israel...

Using data from a quick survey of various rural (RFIs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs) in East Asia, the paper tries to find out how those institutions and their clientele have been affected by the global financial crisis, how they have coped with the ongoing crisis, and what they plan to...

Over the past decade, development policy has witnessed a clear shift towards a poverty reduction agenda. Unsurprisingly, this has been accompanied by changes in views concerning development finance. A dominant refrain of the present agenda is that ‘traditional’ approaches to development...