Evaluation studies routinely find that lending to women benefits their households, they are however vastly divergent in their conclusions regarding its empowering potential. This paper investigates this paradoxical suggestion by examining a case study. Survey data from two drought prone villages...

Altruistic peer-to-peer lending, or crowd-sourced Internet microfinance, exposes a unique environment in which to observe cooperative behavior. Geographically diverse individuals coordinate to provide capital to others in need, often for minimal, or in the case of Kiva.org, zero financial...

Financial services for the poor have existed since early ages and have been evolving from simple transactions to the nowadays microfinance sophisticated products and complex markets. However, despite the steady progress of microfinance, many issues still need to be addressed, and the...

Evidence about commercial banks' liquidity preference says the following about the loan market in less developed countries (LDCs): (i) the loan interest rate is a minimum mark-up rate; (ii) the loan market is characterized by oligopoly power; and (iii) indirect monetary policy, a cornerstone of...

This paper analyzes how bank lending to the private nonbank sector responds dynamically to aggregate supply, demand and monetary policy shocks in Germany and the euro area. The results suggest that the dynamic responses in the two areas are broadly similar, although there are some differences in...

The globalization of banking in the United States is influencing the monetary transmission mechanism both domestically and in foreign markets. Using quarterly information from all U.S. banks filing call reports between 1980 and 2005, we find evidence for the lending channel for monetary policy...

This paper studies the implications of cross-border financial integration for financial stability when banks' loan portfolios adjust endogenously. Banks can be subject to sectoral and aggregate domestic shocks. After integration they can share these risks in a complete interbank market. When...

Foreign banks have increased their market share in many emerging markets since the mid-1990s. We examine whether this contributed to financial stability in the respective host countries in the global financial crisis. Our results suggest that the stabilizing impact of foreign banks was limited...

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of developments in the microfinance sector before and after the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 by comparing them with developments in traditional banking sectors of emerging market economies and developing countries. The findings indicate that...

The recent financial crises pointed out the central role of public and private debt in modern economies. However, even if debt is a recurring topic in discussions about the current economic situation, economic modelling does not take into account debt as one of the crucial determinants of...