This paper studies the relationship between a microfinance institution and its credit officers when the latter are biased against a subgroup of the clientele. Using survey data from Uganda, we provide evidence that credit officers are more biased against disabled borrowers than other employees....

This paper studies how high-powered incentives may affect credit officers’ discriminatory practices in microfinance institutions. Using an agency model applied to a non-profit MFI, we argue that incentive contracts may help align the officer’s behavior with the MFI’s mission. However,...

This paper studies the relationship between a microfinance institution (MFI) and its credit officers when the latter discriminate against a group of the target population. Using survey data from Uganda, we provide evidence that credit officers are more biased against disabled borrowers than...

A poverty penalty arises when the poor pay more than the non-poor to access goods and services. An example is the cost to access credit. While still high, microcredit interest rates are lower than the interest rates charged by moneylenders. Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) usually justify the...

How do women leaders such as board members and top managers influence the social performance of organizations? This paper addresses the issue by exploiting a unique database released by a Senegalese network of 36 financial cooperatives sharing identical governance characteristics and placed...

This study uses a unique, hand-collected sample of microfinance institutions from 73 developing countries to analyze the relationships between audit quality and governance mechanisms. We examine two measures of audit quality, namely, the use of Big Four auditors and the presence of internal...

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are alternative financial providers offering financial services to people typically excluded from the standard banking sector. While most MFIs are active in developing countries, there is also a young and developing microfinance sector in Europe; however, very...

This paper is the first to draw a global picture of worldwide microfinance equity by taking full advantage of daily quoted prices. We revisit previous findings showing that investors should consider microfinance as a self-standing sector. Our results are threefold. First, microfinance has become...

This paper measures the over-indebtedness of microborrowers in Ghana. It defines over-indebtedness from a customer-protection perspective, considering borrowers over-indebted if they continuously struggle with repayment and experience unacceptable sacrifices related to their debt. We find that...