With 7 million borrowers and US$5.4 billion in outstanding loans in 2012, the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) is the largest single microcredit lender in the world. We measure the impact of VBSP lending and seek to answer the question of whether continued subsidies to the bank, which amount to about 2 percent of the value of its loans, are justified. VBSP grew particularly rapidly between 2004 and 2008, when its share of total loans in Viet Nam rose from 10 to 27 percent, and by 2008 an estimated two-fifths of its loans were ostensibly used for directly productive purposes. Using data from a panel of 1,846 rural households interviewed in 2004, 2006, and 2008 as part of the Viet Nam Household Living Standards Survey, we estimated the impact of VBSP lending on consumption and income per capita, as well as self-employment earnings. Both an intention-to-treat model with fixed effects, and a quantity-of-credit model with fixed effects and using instrumental variables, show significant or close to significant impacts of VBSP microloans on consumption and income, but our data do not have enough power to determine whether this mainly works via agricultural or nonagricultural self-employment income. Without VBSP, the rural poverty rate would have been 0.7 percentage points higher in 2008 than it actually was. The subsidy is likely justified, given the evidence and scale of the positive impact of VBSP loans on consumption spending and the concentration of benefits among poorer households in Viet Nam.

Lack of credit access is severe in low income and poor families that are normally considered to have fewer opportunities to borrow from banks due to insufficient valuable assets for collateral. These low-income households face limited opportunity to acquire new technology and working capital for agricultural production and thus tend to fall behind. As a result, providing access to finance to low-income rural households has been considered an important component of any rural development strategy. Microfinance programmes, in particular, have been gradually embedded in national strategies of many developing countries as they are poverty-focused. They aim to facilitate the access to financial services such as credit for the poor who are usually disadvantaged in terms of access to conventional financial services from formal financial institutions. The objective of this book is to provide an overview of microfinance programmes in Asia focusing in particular on the determinants of the accessibility of rural households to microcredit. The book studies seven Asian countries such as China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Bangladesh with two specific case studies.

This book offers an overview of state-of-the-art econometric techniques, with a special emphasis on financial econometrics. There is a major need for such techniques, since the traditional way of designing mathematical models – based on researchers’ insights – can no longer keep pace with the ever-increasing data flow. To catch up, many application areas have begun relying on data science, i.e., on techniques for extracting models from data, such as data mining, machine learning, and innovative statistics. In terms of capitalizing on data science, many application areas are way ahead of economics. To close this gap, the book provides examples of how data science techniques can be used in economics. Corresponding techniques range from almost traditional statistics to promising novel ideas such as quantum econometrics. Given its scope, the book will appeal to students and researchers interested in state-of-the-art developments, and to practitioners interested in using data science techniques.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Vietnam provides a comprehensive analytic contribution to a crucial topic within development economics. Based on fifteen years of continued data collection and research efforts it brings together nine up-to-date studies on micro, small, and medium enterprise (SME) development in a coherent framework to help persuade national and international policymakers of the need to take the international call for a data revolution seriously. This edited volume provides an in-depth evaluation of the development of private sector formal and informal manufacturing SMEs in Vietnam over the past decade, combining a unique primary data source with the best panel data and analytical tools available. It generates a comprehensive understanding of the impact of business risks, credit access, institutional characteristics, and government policies, and makes available a set of materials and studies of use to academics, students, and development practitioners interested in an integrated approach to the study of growth, private sector development, and the microeconomic analysis of SME development in a fascinating developing country. Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Vietnam serves as a lense through which other countries, and the international development community at large, may wish to approach the massive task of pursuing a meaningful data revolution as an integral element of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda.

The idea that small loans can help poor families build businesses and exit poverty has blossomed into a global movement. The concept has captured the public imagination, drawn in billions of dollars, reached millions of customers, and garnered a Nobel Prize. Radical in its suggestion that the poor are creditworthy and conservative in its insistence on individual accountability, the idea has expanded beyond credit into savings, insurance, and money transfers, earning the name microfinance. But is it the boon so many think it is? Readers of David Roodman's openbook blog will immediately recognize his thorough, straightforward, and trenchant analysis. Due Diligence, written entirely in public with input from readers, probes the truth about microfinance to guide governments, foundations, investors, and private citizens who support financial services for poor people. In particular, it explains the need to deemphasize microcredit in favor of other financial services for the poor.

This book discusses ideas for stakeholders to develop strategies to access and use financial products and services such as deposits, loans, and fund transfer mechanism, insurance, payment services, and intermediaries, distribution channels at economical prices in order to cater to the needs of the poor and underprivileged people. Financial inclusion ensures ease of access, availability, and usage of the financial products and services to all the sections of the society. The book will help in recognizing the role of financial inclusion as one of the main drivers in reducing income inequality and thus supporting sustainable economic growth of the countries, especially of an emerging economy. The book provides conceptual and practical ideas from the practitioners, best practices from the experts, and empirical views from the researchers on the best practices and how to mitigate the challenges and issues plaguing the development of the financial inclusion.

Men's roles in building gender equality are currently on the public agenda. Across the globe, there are growing efforts to engage men and boys in building more equitable relations with women and girls. Programs that engage with men have proliferated in fields such as violence prevention, sexual and reproductive health, parenting, education, and work. The last decade has seen the emergence of national and global campaigns, initiatives by international agencies, and scholarly research. Engaging ...

Since its emergence in the 1970s, microfinance has risen to become one of the most high-profile policies to address poverty in developing and transition countries. It is beloved of rock stars, movie stars, royalty, high-profile politicians and ‘troubleshooting’ economists. In this provocative and controversial analysis, Milford Bateman reveals that microfinance doesn’t actually work. In fact, the case for it has been largely built on hype, on egregious half-truths and – latterly – on the Wall Street-style greed of those promoting and working in microfinance. Using a multitude of case studies, from India to Cambodia, Bolivia to Uganda, Serbia to Mexico, Bateman demonstrates that microfi nance actually constitutes a major barrier to sustainable economic and social development, and thus also to sustainable poverty reduction. As developing and transition countries attempt to repair the devastation wrought by the global financial crisis, Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work? argues forcefully that the role of microfinance in development policy urgently needs to be reconsidered.

The purpose of the 'Microfinance Handbook' is to bring together in a single source guiding principles and tools that will promote sustainable microfinance and create viable institutions.