Replicating Microfinance in the United States

"With the publication of this volume, knowledge and understanding of the practices of delivering micro-credit reach a new level of consolidation, and the stage is set for important further steps."—from the Foreword by Richard P. Taub, University of Chicago

Microfinance was pioneered in the developing world as the lending of small amounts of money to entrepreneurs who lacked the kinds of credentials and collateral demanded by banks. Similar practices spread from the developing to the developed world, reversing the usual direction of innovation, and today several hundred microfinance institutions are operating in the United States.

Replicating Microfinace in the United States reviews experiences in both developing and industrialized countries and extends the applications of microlending beyond enterprise to consumer finance, housing finance, and community development finance, concentrating especially on previously underserved households and their communities.

Contributors include Nitin Bhatt, Robert M. Buckley, Bruce Ferguson, Elinor Haider, Chi-kan Richard Hung, Sally R. Merrill, Jonathan Morduch, Gary Painter, Sohini Sarkar, Mark Schreiner, Lisa Servon, Ayse Can Talen, Shui-Yan Tang, Kenneth Temkin, Andres Vinelli, J. D. Von Pischke and Marc A. Weiss.

Replicating Microfinance in the United States is based on papers commissioned by the Fannie Mae Foundation and findings from an October 2001 conference jointly held by the Fannie Mae Foundation and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

US researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and grant makers in microfinance and related fields gathered in Washington, DC in October 2001 to discuss reproducing the approach in the US; it has been used across the non-industrial world for two decades. The conference was part of a research project initiated by the Fannie Mae Foundation in 1999. Distributed in the US by Johns Hopkins University Press. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

James H. Carr is senior vice president for innovation, research, and technology at the Fannie Mae Foundation. Zhong Yi Tong is senior research fellow in housing finance and economics. Replicating Microfinance in the United States is based on papers presented at an October 2001 conference at the Woodrow Wilson Center.