IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v54y2022i44p5099-5132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Subsidies to microfinance institutions: how do they affect cost efficiency and mission drift?

Author

Listed:
  • Anastasia Cozarenco
  • Valentina Hartarska
  • Ariane Szafarz

Abstract

The costs and benefits of subsidized microfinance are still controversial. We utilize a cost-function estimation approach that accounts for the double bottom line (social and financial) of microfinance institutions (MFIs) to evaluate how subsidies affect both cost efficiency and risk of mission drift. We control for endogenous self-selection into the business models of credit-only versus credit-plus-deposit. Our results suggest that MFIs that both supply loans and collect deposits need no subsidies to be cost-efficient. In addition, subsidies to these MFIs are associated with an increase in deposit size, which might hurt the most disadvantaged depositors. In sum, combining subsidized funds from donors with deposits increases the risk of mission drift, and can therefore be socially undesirable.

Suggested Citation

  • Anastasia Cozarenco & Valentina Hartarska & Ariane Szafarz, 2022. "Subsidies to microfinance institutions: how do they affect cost efficiency and mission drift?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(44), pages 5099-5132, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:54:y:2022:i:44:p:5099-5132
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2022.2041176
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2022.2041176
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2022.2041176?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moez Bennouri & Anastasia Cozarenco & Samuel Anokye Nyarko, 2024. "Women on Boards and Performance Trade-offs in Social Enterprises: Insights from Microfinance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 165-198, February.
    2. Simon Cornée & Anastasia Cozarenco & Ariane Szafarz, 2023. "The Changing Role of Banks in the Financial System: Social Versus Conventional Banks," Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions, in: Chrysovalantis Gaganis & Fotios Pasiouras & Menelaos Tasiou & Constantin Zopounidis (ed.), Sustainable Finance and ESG, pages 1-25, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. repec:ags:aaea22:335439 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Valentina Hartarska & Jingfang Zhang & Denis A. Nadolnyak, 2023. "Scope economies from rural and urban microfinance services," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(4), pages 1138-1167, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:applec:v:54:y:2022:i:44:p:5099-5132. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.