Independent research for global prosperity
In August, Reinhard "Harry" Schmidt sent me a thoughtful note about my book, of the sort authors are lucky to receive even once. It contained praise, yes, but also an intelligent list of conceptual realms I had missed or underemphasized, mostly having to do with the challenges of architecting durable financial institutions for the poor.
The microfinance rating agency MicroRate recently released an update of its Role Reversal report, which received wide attention five years ago. Like the original, Role Reversal Revisited makes a strong case that public agencies such as the World Bank's International Finance Corporation are investing heavily in microfinance institutions that are also capable of attracting finance from private investors. Thus public investors are "crowding out" private investors, in contravention of their own policies.
The Kenyan mobile phone--based system, M-PESA, is a financial service for the poor: it is a remarkable new way to transfer money. It has also been looked to with much hope as a platform for other financial services.
The stream of microfinance reports never ends. Lately, I've been struck by a new, more careful tone. The U.K. All-Party Parliamentary Group on Microfinance published a report in June thinking through the government's role in microfinance:
From Ian Smillie's history of BRAC, Freedom from Want, on how things work in Bangladesh:
As you may know, I trained as a mathematician, not an economist. Almost all of my serious work in economics has been that of an annoyingly demanding consumer trying to decide which studies to believe.
Phil Mader has posted a serious defense of Milford Bateman's Why Doesn't Microfinance Work? on Governance across Borders...a defense, that is, against my negative review and some others. Mader writes:
Milford Bateman's new book, Why Doesn't Microfinance Work? The Destructive Rise of Local Neoliberalism, annoys me in much the way that Dambisa Moyo's did last year. I see myself as open-minded, but I guess I am allergic to (as I perceive it) sloppy thinking.
...or anyway, what I read:
Jenny Aker, Can You Text me Money Now? Using Mobile Phones for Cash Transfers
Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti, Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa
Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti, Africa Calling, Boston Review
