Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the...

This article asks if women are better bankers to the poor, motivated by recent work showing differences in performance between male and female CEOs in financial firms and in NGOs. We adapt the banking approach to managerial efficiency to account for the outreach and sustainability goals of...

This paper applies the financing constraint approach to study whether microfinance institutions improved access to credit for microenterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to this approach, microenterprises with improved assess to credit rely less on internal funds for their investments....

This paper presents the first evidence on the impact of external governance mechanisms, board diversity and independence, and management compensation on outreach and sustainability of microfinance institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States. Results indicate that...

Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the...