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Vol. 04 No. 2 Journal Of Microfinance, Journal Of Microfinance Sep 2002

Vol. 04 No. 2 Journal Of Microfinance, Journal Of Microfinance

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

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Challenges To Microfinance Commercialization, Anita Campion Sep 2002

Challenges To Microfinance Commercialization, Anita Campion

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

This paper was presented to audiences in Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines through a World Bank multimedia distance education program in October 2001. The presentation addressed some of the core obstacles to microfinance commercialization, defined here as the application of market-based principles to providing financial services to the poor. The paper discusses some of the challenges to microfinance commercialization, such as inappropriate donor subsidies, poor regulation and supervision, and limited management capacity of microfinance institutions. Given the initial target audience of primarily World Bank employees, the paper concludes with a discussion on what donor can do to move microfinance …

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To Pay Or Not To Pay?: Local Institutional Differences And The Viability Of Rural Credit In Nicaragua, Johan Bastiaensen, Ben D'Exelle Sep 2002

To Pay Or Not To Pay?: Local Institutional Differences And The Viability Of Rural Credit In Nicaragua, Johan Bastiaensen, Ben D'Exelle

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Innovative credit enterprises, aiming to expand the frontier of the rural credit market, can attain financial sustainabihty and broadened social outreach if they embed financial operations in local institutions, such as social networks and prevailing rules. Only in this way can the "rules of the game" imposed by the credit enterprise gain the local legitimacy that is necessary to reduce transaction costs sufficiently. The nature of preexisting local institutional environments, therefore, has a profound effect on the performance of credit enterprises. Our analysis of a rural microcredit program in two neighboring villages in Nicaragua indicates that existing patron-client structures, conditioned …

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Community Savings Funds: Providing Access To Basic Financial Services In Marginalized Rural Areas Of Mexico, Gabriala Zapata Sep 2002

Community Savings Funds: Providing Access To Basic Financial Services In Marginalized Rural Areas Of Mexico, Gabriala Zapata

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

The Community Savings Funds (CSFs) promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture in Mexico seek to provide marginalized community groups with a simple mechanism that allows them to save and administer their own funds securely, efficiently, and profitably, according to their own needs and priorities. Specially trained promoters help set up CSFs for a period of one year—using a standardized Toolkit—after which they are expected to work autonomously. There are 540 CSFs in 12 states with over 12,800 members and savings totaling 4.45 million pesos (US 5445,000). This paper describes the characteristics of the CSF model and the results to date. …

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Care's Mata Masu Dubara (Women On The Move) Program In Niger: Successful Financial Intermediation In The Rural Sahel, William J. Grant, Henry C. Allen [email protected] Sep 2002

Care's Mata Masu Dubara (Women On The Move) Program In Niger: Successful Financial Intermediation In The Rural Sahel, William J. Grant, Henry C. Allen [email protected]

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

CARE's Mata Masu Dubara (MMD) project is a women's time-bound accumulating savings and credit association (ASCA) program in rural Niger. Over the past decade, CARE has facilitated the creation of over 5,500 active women's groups with over 162,000, providing the purest forms of financial intermediation to their members in some of the poorest parts of Niger. Working from a very simple and appropriately adapted savings based product, sustainability and replication of the associations is easy to achieve. Due to the overwhelming demand for the product, CARE's role has evolved from service provider creating the associations to a facilitator that trains …

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Front Matter, Journal Of Microfinance Sep 2002

Front Matter, Journal Of Microfinance

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

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The New Microfinance: An Essay On The Self-Help Group Movement In India, Kim Wilson Sep 2002

The New Microfinance: An Essay On The Self-Help Group Movement In India, Kim Wilson

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Indian NGOs have created at least one million self-help groups with 17,000,000 members since the self-help group concept was developed by MYRADA in the late 1980s. India is unique in that banks are permitted to lend directly to unregistered self-help groups and by May 2001, banks and cooperatives had financed 461,478 of these groups, with almost 200,000 new self-help groups financed between May 2000 and May 2001, indicating an accelerated process of expansion. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) trains banks and refinances their loans. The key to NABARD's success is decentralization. Responsibility for group development and …

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Evaluation And Microenterprise Programs In The United States, Mark Schreiner Sep 2002

Evaluation And Microenterprise Programs In The United States, Mark Schreiner

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Microenterprise programs attempt to help poor people start or strengthen small businesses. Funding and political support have grown rapidly. Is microenterprise a good use of scarce development funds? Unfortunately, most evaluations have been case studies in what not to do. Because benefits and costs cannot be measured completely nor with perfect certainty, rigorous evaluations should support their necessarily subjective judgements with logic and explicit assumptions. The usefulness of an evaluation lies not in its (apparent) incontrovert-ibility but rather in its clarity of assumptions and in its openness to meaningful review and critique.

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A Symposium On Savings-Led Microfinance And The Rural Poor, Jeffrey Ashe Sep 2002

A Symposium On Savings-Led Microfinance And The Rural Poor, Jeffrey Ashe

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

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Pact's Women's Empowerment Program In Nepal : A Savings- And Literacy- Led Alternative To Financial Building, Jeffrey Ashe, Lisa Parrott [email protected] Sep 2002

Pact's Women's Empowerment Program In Nepal : A Savings- And Literacy- Led Alternative To Financial Building, Jeffrey Ashe, Lisa Parrott [email protected]

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Pact's Women's Empowerment Program (WEP) in Nepal operated through 6,500 groups with 130,00 women members. These groups mobilized nearly $2,000,000 of assets in less than three years with 94% on loan to 45,000 group members. By mid 2001, WEP had as many outstanding loans as CARD in the Philippines and Compartamos in Mexico, two very well known "credit-led" microfi-nance institutions, while working through three times as many groups. In addition, 65,000 group members learned to read through Pact's innovative curriculum that focused exclusively on managing a group, starting a business, and women's empowerment. WEP was implemented by 240 partners (most …

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End Matter, Journal Of Microfinance Sep 2002

End Matter, Journal Of Microfinance

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

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Ashrai: A Savings-Led Model For Fighting Poverty And Discrimination, Brett Matthews, Ahsan Ali [email protected] Sep 2002

Ashrai: A Savings-Led Model For Fighting Poverty And Discrimination, Brett Matthews, Ahsan Ali [email protected]

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Ashrai is getting results with a savings-led model among minority peoples in northwest Bangladesh. These people are mostly landless and illiterate, and earn about $50 a year per person. They are a vital population segment that microfinance institutions in Bangladesh and elsewhere are unable to serve successfully. Ashrai began its field work ten years ago by replicating Grameen Bank, but rapidly learned from its clients that they needed savings at least at much as loans, flexible loan repayment schedules structured around seasonal cash flow, and an easing of the requirement that loans be for productive purposes. Ashrai takes an innovative …

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Civic Impressions, Civic Culture And Information Factors In Border Settings: Findings From El Paso/Ciudad Juárez, Dennis L. Soden, Janet S. Conary, Christine Thurlow Brenner Sep 2002

Civic Impressions, Civic Culture And Information Factors In Border Settings: Findings From El Paso/Ciudad Juárez, Dennis L. Soden, Janet S. Conary, Christine Thurlow Brenner

IPED Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

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Tax Increment Financing (Tif) Best Practices Study, Gary L. Sullivan, Steve A. Johnson, Dennis L. Soden Sep 2002

Tax Increment Financing (Tif) Best Practices Study, Gary L. Sullivan, Steve A. Johnson, Dennis L. Soden

IPED Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

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Competitiveness : Perceptions, Reflections And Directions, D K Banwet, Kirankumar Momaya, Himanshu Kumar Shee Sep 2002

Competitiveness : Perceptions, Reflections And Directions, D K Banwet, Kirankumar Momaya, Himanshu Kumar Shee

IIMB Management Review

Competitiveness has gained importance as a subject of study during the last decade or so. The initial stimulus came during the eighties when the US experienced an economic decline. As American firms started losing ground all over the world in significantly important industries such as automobile, shipbuilding, electronics and steel, researchers began focussing attention on country and industry level competitiveness. Given India’s low and declining ranking in the Global Competitiveness Report and the World Competitiveness Yearbook, it is imperative that academics, industrialists and policy makers make a serious study of the factors that drive competitiveness at all levels, and take …

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Industrialisation And Innovation : The Indian Experience By Nasir Tyabji, New Delhi: Sage, 2000., Rishikesha T Krishnan Sep 2002

Industrialisation And Innovation : The Indian Experience By Nasir Tyabji, New Delhi: Sage, 2000., Rishikesha T Krishnan

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

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Indian Steel Industry At The Crossroads : A Strategic Perspective, Gautam Sinha, Satyajit Jena Sep 2002

Indian Steel Industry At The Crossroads : A Strategic Perspective, Gautam Sinha, Satyajit Jena

IIMB Management Review

In the post liberalisation era, the Indian steel industry is passing through an intensely turbulent transformation, belying the rosy forecasts of the early 90s. The international recession in steel is expected to persist for at least two more years, along with competition of a high order, posing a serious threat to the Indian steel industry. Gautam Sinha and Satyajit Jena attempt to link the intrinsic and extrinsic forces operating on the Indian steel industry in order to gain a holistic understanding of it. Using performance indices such as Debt-Equity Ratio, Return on Networth, Net Sales/ Total Assets and Net Profit/ …

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International Competitiveness : Evaluation And Enhancement By Kirankumar Momaya, 2001, Hindustan Publishing Corporation, New Delhi., Badar Alam Iqbal Sep 2002

International Competitiveness : Evaluation And Enhancement By Kirankumar Momaya, 2001, Hindustan Publishing Corporation, New Delhi., Badar Alam Iqbal

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

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Savings And Credit For U.S. Microenterprises : Integrating Individual Development Accounts And Loans For Microenterprise, Caroline E. Glackin, Eliza G. Mahony Sep 2002

Savings And Credit For U.S. Microenterprises : Integrating Individual Development Accounts And Loans For Microenterprise, Caroline E. Glackin, Eliza G. Mahony

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

This paper provides a framework for the integration of two asset-building instruments, Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and loans for microenterprise. Initially, it provides an overview of the emergence of the asset-based approach to poverty alleviation in the U.S. context and the evolution of IDAs and microenterprise development (MED). Then, it evaluates the potential role of IDAs in reducing risk using conventional lending criteria. The paper summarizes the findings of initial research on integrated programs and highlights four case studies. Finally, the paper provides some preliminary observations regarding potential benefits and challenges of the integrated approach and proposes an agenda for …

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Book Review: Inner-City Entrepreneurship Development: The Microcredit Challenge By Nitin Bhatt, Jerry Black Sep 2002

Book Review: Inner-City Entrepreneurship Development: The Microcredit Challenge By Nitin Bhatt, Jerry Black

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

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Unfinished Business: The Need For More Effective Microfinance Exit Monitering, James G. Copestake Sep 2002

Unfinished Business: The Need For More Effective Microfinance Exit Monitering, James G. Copestake

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

High rates of exit remain the "Achilles heel" of many micro-finance organizations. After reviewing definitional issues, the paper explores how exit rates adversely affect both their commercial and social objectives. It then reviews case studies of exit monitoring based on routine, questionnaire based and focus group methods, making detailed suggestions as to how data collection, analysis and reporting can be improved.

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Banking Sector Reforms: Current Status And Future Prospects, Ishrat Husain Dr. Aug 2002

Banking Sector Reforms: Current Status And Future Prospects, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

Pakistan’s banking sector has been faced with at least several problems and difficulties. The main problems faced by the sector are:- (1) Most of the financial assets and deposits are owned by nationalized commercial banks (NCBs) which suffer from a highly bureaucratic approach, overstaffing, unprofitable branches and poor customer service. (2) NCBs along with specialized banks such as ADBP, IDBP and Development financial institutions such as NDFC have a high ratio of non-performing loans. (3) Banking industry faces a high tax rate which affects its profitability and attractiveness for new entrants. (4) There is a proliferation of banks and some …

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What Makes That Employee So Good? Identifying The Characteristics Of High Performance Hourly Employees In The Theme Park And Attraction Industry, Ady Milman Jul 2002

What Makes That Employee So Good? Identifying The Characteristics Of High Performance Hourly Employees In The Theme Park And Attraction Industry, Ady Milman

Dick Pope Sr. Institute Publications

Following the September 11th, 2001 events, the United States has seen the first decline in employment expansion in over a decade. The services industry lost 111,000 jobs, mainly in travel-related businesses like hotels (46,000) and auto services (13,000), in particular auto rental agencies and parking services (U.S. Department of Labor, 2001). The hospitality industry, like many other sectors of the service industry is faced with the challenge of recruiting and retaining employees. Employment in the theme park and attraction industry is not an easy task. Human resource professionals are challenged on a daily basis with unique task of recruiting, selecting, …

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The Economic Review Of The Travel Industry In Montana: 2002 Biennial Edition, Thale Dillon, Jill Sanderson Jul 2002

The Economic Review Of The Travel Industry In Montana: 2002 Biennial Edition, Thale Dillon, Jill Sanderson

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This review provides current and historical data of nonresident travel and tourism in Montana, and offers the industry's economic contributions to the state.

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The Implications Of Technology Networks On Diffusion And Economic Growth, Hing-Man Leung Jul 2002

The Implications Of Technology Networks On Diffusion And Economic Growth, Hing-Man Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

After the record-breaking run of high-speed growth in the United States during the late 1990s, a pressing question is Has anything fundamental changed in our growth engine? This paper examines an IT-led endogenous growth model driven by technology diffusion. Diffusion is in turn driven by network effect embodied in new technologies. The equilibrium long-term growth rate is however found to be independent of such technology networks. A novelty in our model is that innovation is discontinuous and it is separated by periods of diffusion. This (IT) network-diffusion is shown to be Sigmoid, and diffusion speed is slower than socially optimal.

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The Impact Of Housing Prices On Aggregate Consumption: Evidence From An East Asian City-State, Sock-Yong Phang Jul 2002

The Impact Of Housing Prices On Aggregate Consumption: Evidence From An East Asian City-State, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using aggregate consumption data for Singapore, this paper rejects the life-cycle/permanent income and myopia hypotheses as explanations for aggregate consumption behavior. We confirm the presence of liquidity constraints from the asymmetric reaction of consumption to income increases vis-a-vis income declines. When we allow for asymmetric response, anticipated house price increases appear to have a dampening effect on aggregate consumption while declines in expected house price growth also had a negative effect on consumption, although the results are statistically insignificant. There is no evidence that the housing price increases have produced either wealth or collateral enhancement effects on consumption.

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Agricultural Sector Development: Problems And Issues, Ishrat Husain Dr. Jun 2002

Agricultural Sector Development: Problems And Issues, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

Agriculture is by far the most important sector for Pakistan’s economy. The forward and backward linkages to the rest of the domestic economy, to the international trade and with poverty alleviation are very strong. A bad year for agriculture due to drought or other natural calamities has extremely adverse effect on GDP growth, living standards of the population, price level, exportable surplus and balance of payments. Thus the dichotomy of agriculture vs. industry or services sectors is totally false as agriculture forms the backbone of the whole economy.

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Is State Bank Of Pakistan Doing Its Job?, Ishrat Husain Dr. Jun 2002

Is State Bank Of Pakistan Doing Its Job?, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

To address the above question we have to begin by spelling out the mandate of the State Bank Pakistan. Like all other central banks the SBP is charged with ensuring financial stability, monetary stability, external sector stability and payments and settlement system of the country. The SBP was granted legal autonomy in 1997 and is supervised by a Board of Directors. Currently, the Board consists of seven individuals from the private sector drawn from academia, agriculture, small and medium business, large industrial groups, one retired civil servant and a representative of the Ministry of Finance. While legal autonomy is necessary …

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Quality Of Life In El Paso: Citizen's Perceptions -- 2002, Dennis L. Soden, Tina J. Manco Jun 2002

Quality Of Life In El Paso: Citizen's Perceptions -- 2002, Dennis L. Soden, Tina J. Manco

IPED Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

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Coping With Liberalisation : The Industry’S Response To New Competition By P S Palande, Response Books, New Delhi, 2000., Pradeep Banerjee Jun 2002

Coping With Liberalisation : The Industry’S Response To New Competition By P S Palande, Response Books, New Delhi, 2000., Pradeep Banerjee

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

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