The poor must save, not only to qualify for and pay off credit, but also for key purchases such as clothing for the start of a child's school year; life course events, such as births, weddings, and funerals; and emergencies, such as car repair, illness, or job loss. Recent applied research has...

Most observers would agree that globalization can in principle be a positive phenomenon and aid human development even if they disagree about the extent to which the current wave of globalization has in fact been helpful. A key issue in these debates is the extent to which globalization widens...

Close to three billion people - half of the world's population - live on less than two dollars a day. Within these poor communities, one child in five will not live to see his or her fifth birthday. To boost international development, the United Nations announced the Millennium Development...

Congress has enacted a wide range of laws that affect the provision of credit. This chapter provides an introduction to five types of federal laws that have been enacted to help overcome barriers to credit. These include laws on: disclosure (the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and Truth in Lending...

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has helped to revitalize low- and moderate-income communities and provided expanded opportunities for low- and moderate-income households. Recent regulatory steps aimed at alleviating burdens on banks and thrifts are unwarranted, and may diminish small...

Despite the depth and breadth of U.S. credit markets, low- and moderate-income communities and minority borrowers have not historically enjoyed full access to credit. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was enacted in 1977 to help overcome barriers to credit that these groups faced. Scholars...

Having a bank account is widely regarded as the first step toward financial inclusion of the poor. Funds deposited in bank account are also observed to lead to higher savings. Exploiting special features of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) of India, our estimates indicate that...

I examine the causal effects of access to mainstream financial services, as provided by opening a bank account, on a sample of participants in financial education workshops. Exploiting quasi-random variation in the likelihood of account opening at specific institutions following the workshop, I...

The strong and increasing positive correlation between lifetime income and life expectancy (the longevity gap) has recently been widely studied. In this paper we employ the simplest, minimal model to demonstrate the impact of this long-neglected fact on the various types of public pension...