Academic analyses and impact evaluation studies produced by the international development community almost all conclude that the microfinance model has made an important net contribution to the economic and social recovery of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter Bosnia). However, as we now...

Foreword / James K. Galbraith -- Introduction: setting the scene / Milford Bateman and Kate Maclean -- Background -- The political economy of microfinance / Milford Bateman -- Poverty reduction or the financialization of poverty? / Maren Duvendack and Philip Mader -- Seduction -- Pop development...

The last thirty years or so has seen the commercial or ‘new wave' microfinance model rise to dominate the local financial systems in both developing and transition countries alike. Initially inspired by the Grameen Bank model that emerged in Bangladesh in the 1970s, but later refined to more...

This paper describes how many countries in East Asia established from 1945 onwards a very successful local financial system, starting with Japan. These local financial systems played a key role in bringing about the so-called 'East Asian miracle'. From the 1980s onwards, however, many East Asian...

One of the central claims of the new generation of neoliberal economists that emerged in the 1960s, especially in the USA, was that market-driven private sector financial institutions were by far the most effective at intermediating capital into the most productive uses (Friedman, 1962; McKinnon,...