International & Foreign Business Enterprises - General & Miscellaneous, Small Business - Legal & Financial, General & Miscellaneous Social Services, Microfinance, Poverty, Venture Capital

Microfinance and Public Policy

Name: Microfinance and Public Policy
Author: Bernd Balkenhol
ISBN: 9780230547025

by Bernd Balkenhol

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide a public good: they provide income-creating financial services to un-bankable people. If MFIs create and deepen markets where none existed before, there may be a case for public support. While subsidies are generally not favorably seen in financial sector development, being difficult to target and possibly distorting the local financial market, there may be situations where the net social benefits of micro-finance may exceed those of not doing anything and of alternative anti-poverty programs. Under such circumstances longer-term public support may be justifiable. This book is based on a study of forty-five MFIs carried out by ILO, in partnership with the Universities of Geneva and Cambridge. The application of factor analysis and cluster analysis shows that MFIs form clusters in terms of social and performance. Within each cluster there is one institution that is most efficient on both scores. Public support should ensure that the relative efficiency of MFIs is enhanced, it should not prod MFIs to modify their mission and position between poverty outreach and profitability.

Synopsis

This book argues that efficiency in both social and financial performance is a reliable criterion that can and should guide public policy support, regardless of orientation of a microfinance institution.

About the Author, Bernd Balkenhol

BERND BALKENHOL heads the Social Finance Program of the International Labour Office (ILO). SFP is the focal point for work in the ILO on financial sector issues. It examines the impact of financial policies on employment, incomes and social cohesion, analyses the accessibility of different types of financial institutions and promotes innovations in finance that work for the poor, entrepreneurial or not.
For several years Bernd Balkenhol served as advisor to central banks in Africa on policies and regulations in supoort of SME financing.
He holds a PhD from Freiburg University and an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He lectures regularly at the Geneva Institute of Development Studies and the University of Geneva. He has published on informal finance, collateral and property rights, savings and credit cooperatives, small enterprise finance, remittances and related subjects.