IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/abk/jajeba/ajebasp.2023.1.12.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Microcredit Services to Reduce Vulnerabilities in Italy: An Exploratory Study Using Focus Groups

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Calzolari
  • Domenica Federico
  • Antonella Notte
  • Lucia Poletti
  • Giulio Tagliavini

Abstract

The development and promotion of microfinance services has been viewed as a key policy and program intervention for poverty reduction and bottom up economic and social local development. This study aims to analyze critically the role of microcredit in Italy as a tool to facilitate the credit access to vulnerable people and help them establish or expand a business. Using focus groups, the research analyses the mechanisms through which the involvement in microcredit operations results in positive (and negative) effects on people’s lives. During the group discussion, microcredit emerges as a positive instrument representing a great opportunity to allow people to find a form of employment, in the respect of the human rights. The credit seems to be even more important for young and migrants as a way to become independent economically, to start playing a new role in the society. However, the initial support and the following assistance during the loan term emerge as fundamental elements for the success of microloans, not only for the most vulnerable borrowers. These results suggest that effective microcredit policies should support the provision of non-financial services along with microcredit.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Calzolari & Domenica Federico & Antonella Notte & Lucia Poletti & Giulio Tagliavini, 2023. "Microcredit Services to Reduce Vulnerabilities in Italy: An Exploratory Study Using Focus Groups," American Journal of Economics and Business Administration, Science Publications, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:abk:jajeba:ajebasp.2023.1.12
    DOI: 10.3844/ajebasp.2023.1.12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://thescipub.com/pdf/ajebasp.2023.1.12.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://thescipub.com/abstract/ajebasp.2023.1.12
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3844/ajebasp.2023.1.12?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grazioli, Riccardo & Pizzo, Giampietro & Poletti, Lucia & Tagliavini, Giulio & Timpano, Francesco, 2020. "The Social Return on Investment (SROI) of four microfinance projects," EIF Working Paper Series 2020/65, European Investment Fund (EIF).
    2. Arbolino, Roberta & Carlucci, Fabio & Cirà, Andrea & Yigitcanlar, Tan & Ioppolo, Giuseppe, 2018. "Mitigating regional disparities through microfinancing: An analysis of microcredit as a sustainability tool for territorial development in Italy," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 281-288.
    3. Glantz, Morton, 2014. "Navigating the Business Loan," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780128016985.
    4. Rachael Meager, 2019. "Understanding the Average Impact of Microcredit Expansions: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of Seven Randomized Experiments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 57-91, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bo, Hao & Galiani, Sebastian, 2021. "Assessing external validity," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 274-285.
    2. Fang, Guanfu & Gao, Tiantian & He, Huanlang & Sun, Qian, 2023. "Public credit information arrangements and entrepreneurship: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Fall, François Seck & Tchakoute Tchuigoua, Hubert & Vanhems, Anne & Simar, Léopold, 2022. "Investigating the unobserved heterogeneity effect on microfinance social efficiency," LIDAM Discussion Papers ISBA 2022010, Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA).
    4. Holla,Alaka & Bendini,Maria Magdalena & Dinarte Diaz,Lelys Ileana & Trako,Iva, 2021. "Is Investment in Preprimary Education Too Low ? Lessons from (Quasi) ExperimentalEvidence across Countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9723, The World Bank.
    5. Abhijit Banerjee & Emily Breza & Esther Duflo & Cynthia Kinnan, 2019. "Can Microfinance Unlock a Poverty Trap for Some Entrepreneurs?," NBER Working Papers 26346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Colmer, Jonathan & Lin, Dajun & Liu, Siying & Shimshack, Jay, 2021. "Why are pollution damages lower in developed countries? Insights from high-Income, high-particulate matter Hong Kong," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Daniel Bjorkegren & Joshua Blumenstock & Omowunmi Folajimi-Senjobi & Jacqueline Mauro & Suraj R. Nair, 2022. "Instant Loans Can Lift Subjective Well-Being: A Randomized Evaluation of Digital Credit in Nigeria," Papers 2202.13540, arXiv.org.
    8. Stefano DellaVigna & Elizabeth Linos, 2022. "RCTs to Scale: Comprehensive Evidence From Two Nudge Units," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 81-116, January.
    9. Cameron, Lisa & Gertler, Paul & Shah, Manisha & Alzua, Maria Laura & Martinez, Sebastian & Patil, Sumeet, 2022. "The dirty business of eliminating open defecation: The effect of village sanitation on child height from field experiments in four countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    10. Seth Garz & Xavier Gine & Dean Karlan & Rafe Mazer & Caitlin Sanford & Jonathan Zinman, 2021. "Consumer Protection for Financial Inclusion in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Bridging Regulator and Academic Perspectives," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 219-246, November.
    11. Laura Battaglia & Timothy Christensen & Stephen Hansen & Szymon Sacher, 2024. "Inference for Regression with Variables Generated from Unstructured Data," Papers 2402.15585, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    12. Dang, Hai-Anh H & Deininger, Klaus & Nguyen, Cuong Viet, 2024. "Did Program Support for the Poorest Areas Work? Evidence from Rural Vietnam," IZA Discussion Papers 17445, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Ravallion, Martin, 2020. "Highly prized experiments," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    14. Jonathan Fu & Annette Krauss, 2024. "Preparing fertile ground: how does the quality of business environments affect MSE growth?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 51-103, June.
    15. Clare Balboni & Oriana Bandiera & Robin Burgess & Maitreesh Ghatak & Anton Heil, 2023. "Why Do People Stay Poor?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(2), pages 785-844.
    16. Ubfal,Diego Javier, 2024. "What Works in Supporting Women-Led Businesses ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10744, The World Bank.
    17. Paul Hunermund & Elias Bareinboim, 2019. "Causal Inference and Data Fusion in Econometrics," Papers 1912.09104, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    18. Han, Linsong & Li, Xun & Xu, Gang, 2022. "Anti-corruption and poverty alleviation: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 150-172.
    19. Simon Zaby, 2019. "Science Mapping of the Global Knowledge Base on Microfinance: Influential Authors and Documents, 1989–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-21, July.
    20. Ali, Ayesha & Qazi, Ihsan Ayyub, 2023. "Countering misinformation on social media through educational interventions: Evidence from a randomized experiment in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:abk:jajeba:ajebasp.2023.1.12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jeffery Daniels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://thescipub.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.