The uptake of microinsurance in developing countries falls short of projections, which has recently made stakeholders focus on client value. This article investigates when and why clients of a micro life insurance product in Ghana perceive value, using data from focus group discussions. We show...

In recent years, a debate about the potential of decentralisation for poverty alleviation has set off among academics and policy-makers. It is often claimed that decentralisation can be effective for improvements in welfare and hence the reduction of poverty. For example, the World Bank explains...

This paper argues that the study of the demand for financial services in developing countries leaves out part of the story if it looks at only one of the three elements of the so-called finance trinity—that is, savings products, loans and insurance—as is largely done in the literature. In...

This paper aims to understand the role of micro-insurance as an element of social protection. It outlines the current status of micro-insurance provision in Ghana and Sri Lanka, two countries with very different socio-cultural backgrounds. It concludes that both countries are unlikely to extend...

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing controversy on the distributional effects of structural reforms in developing countries. Applying inequality indices and FieldsÂ’ (2001) decomposition methodology to Bolivian household survey data of the years 1989 to 1997, we identify recent...