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...

An empirical neoclassical growth model reveals that foreign investment incrementally contributed to the economic transition of 27 countries in Central and Eastern Europe during the transition period 1989 to 2003. The model departs from the theoretical and applied growth literatures by estimating...

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

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) play a key role in many developing countries. Utilizing data from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, MFIs are found to generally operate with lower costs the longer they are in operation. Given the differences in operating environments, subsidies, and...