Newsweek Blogs Roodman & Morduch 2009

Newsweek blogger Mac Margolis just wrote about my new paper with Jonathan Morduch. I think Margolis got the story 95% right, though Jonathan and I never suggested that microfinance is a bubble. And while we did write that "30 years into the microfinance movement we have little solid evidence that it improves the lives of clients in measurable ways," that assertion was carefully worded to allow for the perspective in Jonathan's Portfolios of the Poor, which is that given what we know about how the poor manage money, it is easy to see how reliable financial services could help them survive life on $2/day, even if not escape it.Still, it is nice to have the story picked up.