TY - BOOK AU - Todd A Watkins AU - Todd A Watkins TI - Introduction to microfinance SN - 9789813143005 U1 - 332 WAT PY - 2018/// CY - Singapore ; Hackensack, NJ PB - : World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. KW - Economics KW - Microfinance N1 - Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 An Introduction to Microfinance -- 1.1.Microfinance Begins -- 1.2.Microfinance Defined -- Can the Poor Really Use Financial Services? -- Microcredit: The Roots of Microfinance -- Group Lending -- Savings and Beyond -- 1.3.Microfinance as an Industry -- How Big Is Microfinance and Who Uses It? -- Who Provides Microfinance? -- Commercialization: Does It Undermine Social Missions? -- Outreach -- Key Players and Intermediaries -- Microfinance Institutions and Networks -- MFI Funders and Service Providers -- ch. 2 Daily Financial Lives of the Poor -- 2.1.The Portfolios of the Poor -- One Poor Family's Financial Story -- Meet Khadeja and Hamid -- Finance without Money -- The Need for Financial Services -- Ensuring Daily Consumption -- Emergencies and Other Big Ticket Expenses -- 2.2.Informal Mechanisms of Savings, Lending, and Insurance -- Saving Up -- Saving Down -- Saving Through -- The Demand for Microfinance Note continued: 2.3.Patterns of Global Poverty -- Where and How Poor Are the Poor? -- Wealth Distribution and Income Inequality -- ch. 3 Barriers to Financial Services for the Poor -- 3.1.Patterns of Access to Financial Services -- 3.2.Two Worlds: Formal Finance and Informal Markets -- Banking Business Models vs. the Informal Sector -- Dead Capital and the Informal Economy -- The Primacy of Flow Transactions -- Information Asymmetries and Agency Problems -- Adverse Selection -- Moral Hazard -- Limited Liability -- 3.3.Behavioral Barriers -- Social and Cultural Norms -- Psychological Tendencies -- Self-Control -- Mental Accounting -- Misestimating Risk -- 3.4.Problems of Costs and Risks -- Transaction and Opportunity Costs -- Last Mile Problem and Complementary Infrastructure -- Challenges of On-Demand Access -- Managing Risks -- Subsidized Credit -- ch. 4 Informal Finance -- 4.1.Savings Clubs -- ROSCAs: Rotating Savings and Credit Associations -- Basic ROSCAs Note continued: Other Forms of ROSCAs -- Motivations for Joining ROSCAs -- ASCAs: Accumulated Savings and Credit Associations -- Non-Time-Bound ASCAs -- Flexibility and Issues with ASCAs -- 4.2.Savings Handlers and Credit Providers -- External Managers -- Deposit Collectors -- Informal Moneylenders -- How Much Do Moneylenders Charge and Why? -- Credit under Contract -- ch. 5 Microlending -- 5.1.Group Lending -- Group Lending Approaches -- Classic "Grameen-Style" Group Lending -- Solidarity Group Approach -- Village Banking -- Village Savings and Loan Associations -- Self-Help Groups -- 5.2.Group Lending as a Tool to Overcome Market -- Failures -- Social Implications and Moral Hazard -- Gender and Group Lending -- Implications for Forming Groups -- Strangers vs. Community and Friends: What Works? -- 5.3.Limitations of Group Lending -- The Inflexibility of Group Lending -- Opportunity Costs -- Free Riding -- Joint Liability's Double Edge -- Collusion Risk Note continued: 5.4.Individual Lending -- Individual vs. Group Lending from the MFI's Perspective -- Individual vs. Group Lending from the Client's Perspective -- Graduation -- ch. 6 Beyond Microcredit -- 6.1.The Emerging Array of Microfinance Services -- 6.2.Microsavings -- Why Do the Poor Need to Save? -- Types of Microsavings Services -- Compulsory Savings -- Voluntary Savings -- Commitment Savings -- The Benefits of Savings Mobilization -- Benefits to the Individual -- Benefits for the MFI -- External Challenges to Savings Mobilization -- 6.3.Microinsurance -- Why Microinsurance? -- How Widespread Is Microinsurance? -- Who Provides Microinsurance? -- Potential Market Failures and Microinsurance -- Adverse Selection -- Moral Hazard and Limited Liability -- Fraud -- Covariate Risk -- Technical Challenges in Microinsurance -- Loan Protection Insurance -- Life Microinsurance -- Savings-Linked Microinsurance -- Health Microinsurance Note continued: What's Covered? Balancing Costs and Demand -- Adverse Selection and Health Insurance -- Why Isn't Health Microinsurance More Widespread? -- Agricultural Index Microinsurance -- ch. 7 Gender Issues in Microfinance -- 7.1.The Focus on Women -- Regional Patterns -- Commercialization and Gender -- 7.2.Why the Focus on Women? The Demand Side -- Why Might Women Demand Microfinance More Than Men? -- Wage Gaps and Informal Economy Financial Patterns -- 7.3.The Supply Side: Why Do MFIs Prefer Women? -- Are Women Better for Business? -- The Family Impact Motive -- The Empowerment Motive -- Might Microfinance Dis-empower Women? -- ch. 8 The Evolution of Commercial Microfinance -- 8.1.Profitability, Transformation and Scale -- Demonstrating MFI Profitability -- Transformation of Non-Profits into Regulated Banks -- The Distortion Potential of Subsidies -- Achieving Scale and Mass Outreach -- Efficiency and Pricing Incentives in Competitive Markets Note continued: How Much Does Microcredit Cost? -- 8.2.The Ecosystem of Intermediaries -- International Financial Institutions and Investment Funds -- Information Providers and Other Professional Services -- 8.3.Accessing International Capital Markets -- Public Equity -- Commercial Debt -- 8.4.The Social Mission Debate -- ch. 9 Measuring the Impact of Microfinance -- 9.1.Challenges to Measuring Impact -- Part I -- Correlation vs. Causation: What's the Difference? -- Selection Bias Explains Some Correlations -- Establishing the Counterfactual to Determine Causation -- 9.2.Methodology of Impact Assessments -- Model of the Causal Impact Chain -- Levels of Analysis -- Specification of Types of Impact to Assess -- Gathering Information: Qualitative vs. Quantitative Studies -- Randomized Control Trials -- 9.3.Challenges to Measuring Impact -- Part II -- Tradeoff between Depth and Breadth -- Problems with Mathematical Models -- 9.4.Evidence of Impact Note continued: Evidence on the Impact of Microcredit -- Experimental Evidence -- Evidence from Quasi-Experiments -- Evidence on the Impact of Microsavings -- The Poor Want Formal Ways to Save -- Commitment Savings vs. Basic Savings Accounts -- Microfinance's Macroeconomic Effects Remain Unknown N2 - Microfinance has grown from the obscure efforts of a few philanthropic institutions into a global industry that reaches 150–200 million clients through the branches of thousands of institutions. Microfinance has matured from exclusively funding loans to providing savings, insurance, healthcare, and education. Yet many people still think of it narrowly as microcredit. Understanding remains thin of what the industry does, how it functions and why.Introduction to Microfinance provides a non-technical introduction to the broad array of inclusive financial and non-financial services for the world's poor. It explores the financial lives of those families, and the microfinance institutions and rapidly growing industry that serve them. Written in close collaboration with college students for college students, under the auspices of one of the US's leading undergraduate programs in microfinance, it is the first-ever introductory college textbook about microfinance. What is microfinance? What are its methods and why? Does it work? What are its prospects and challenges? Why is it controversial? This book tackles these questions and more ER -