Finance

Readers of David Roodman's Microfinance Open Book Blog will immediately recognize his thorough, straightforward, and trenchant analysis of whether microfinance is the boon many think it is.

Ben Leo testified before the House Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade on July 27, 2011 about the importance of multilateral development banks to the United States and the greater world.

This paper examines the efficacy of loan programs in the development of domestic enterprises in the immediate aftermath of conflicts. The author explores whether the strategies employed by such programs are effective and if there are opportunities for improving the outcomes of similar projects in...

This paper provides a review of the rationale for and against SME initiatives and an overview of existing targeted USG and IFI programs. The authors offer several new incremental options for private foundations to establish focused partnerships with donor agencies in their efforts to assist SMEs in...

In this working paper, the authors examine four categories of existing resource-mobilization options and recommend which might best be used to finance global public goods.

Nuhu Ribadu, former head of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions, shows how he and his team used international money-laundering laws to fight corruption in Nigeria.

Todd Moss testifies before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade on November 16, 2010, about the global financial crisis and financial reforms in Nigeria.

This module will examine the leading issues related to capital flows between the developed and developing worlds. It will cover the various types of official and private finance as well as the institutions and policies designed to manage and promote these flows. The first half considers...

This paper explores the impact of international financial integration on credit markets in Latin America. The overall effect is positive, but the foreign banks do tend to amplify the impact of foreign shocks on credit and interest rates. Important policy recommendations include ring-fencing...

This course explores the role of microfinance in economic development. It will discuss how poor people in poor countries use financial services such as credit and savings; the history and practice of delivering such services; what is known about their contribution to development; and how stories...

The CGD Task Force on Access to Financial Services proposes 10 principles for financial-sector policymakers—including national authorities, donors, private-sector participants, international financial institutions, and others—on the facilitation, regulation, and direct provision of...

CGD fellow David Roodman and Jonathan Morduch a landmark evaluation of the impact of microcredit on poor households in Bangladesh. They replicate the study's statistical analysis and put an end to the controversy surrounding it by showing that it fails to rule out reverse causation. A positive...

CGD senior fellow Liliana Rojas-Suarez argues that the recent sharp spike in food and oil prices, above the long term upward trend, threatens Latin America’s stability and is the result of excess global liquidity and the U.S. credit mess. She says the region must fight inflation now and, going...

Group liability--wherein individuals are both borrowers and guarantors of other client's loans--is often described as the key innovation that led to the explosion of microcredit. It is thought to create incentives for peers to screen, monitor and enforce each other's loans. But some argue that...

Policymakers often urge microfinance institutions to increase interest rates to eliminate reliance on subsidies. This makes sense if the poor will borrow regardless of interest rates: then micro lenders increase profitability without reducing the poor's access to credit. But there is little...

Can one teach basic entrepreneurship skills? A growing number of microfinance organizations are trying, in the hopes of improving the livelihood of their clients and to further their mission of poverty alleviation. In this working paper, CGD non-resident fellow Dean Karlan and his co-author...

Information asymmetries--which occur when one party to a transaction has more or better information than the other party--can cause inefficiency, over-investment, or poverty traps. Unfortunately, they are difficult to identify in practice. In this working paper, CGD non-resident fellow Dean...

Microfinance is often viewed as a tool for empowering women. However, it is not clear that increasing a woman's share of household income also improves her status within the household. In this working paper, CGD non-resident fellow Dean Karlan and his co-authors examine whether access to...

Microfinance is generally credited with helping to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of the poor. But as microfinance institutions move beyond entrepreneurial credit to offering consumer loans, many practitioners and policymakers are skeptical about "unproductive" lending. In this working...

Microfinance is a widely celebrated strategy for helping poor people in the developing world. Leading microfinance institutions, including the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Grameen Bank, reach millions of clients. CGD research fellow David Roodman and Uzma Qureshi analyze why some microfinance...

With foreign investment in the U.S. increasingly in the spotlight, this working paper by William Cline explores the U.S. external deficit and the fact that the U.S. relies on foreign lending to finance its trade deficit. Cline emphasizes the dangers of a hard landing for the U.S., and why this...

After more than a decade of financial sector liberalization, both of domestic markets and of international financial transactions (capital account liberalization), policymakers in many developing countries remain concerned about the effects that large and highly volatile capital flows have on their...

Public policy on financial crises in emerging markets has implicitly been grounded in economic theory calling for lender-of-last-resort intervention when the country is solvent, and on theory recognizing that reputational damage is the quasi-collateral enabling lending to sovereigns with no...

This study examines the impact of the principal financial crises in emerging markets in recent years on the incidence of poverty in the countries in question. The growth impact is first identified by comparing average per capita growth in the two years prior to the crisis to that in the crisis year...