IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/man/cgbcrp/106.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Macroeconomics of Microfinance

Author

Listed:
  • Soyolmaa Batbekh
  • Keith Blackburn

Abstract

Microfinance (small scale lending to the poor) is integrated into a dynamic macroeconomic model of income distribution. Two-period-lived agents, belonging to overlapping generation of dynastic families, choose between three alternative occupations - subsistence production, small-scale project investment and large-scale project investment. Subsistence activity is costless and riskless, whilst project investment is the opposite and may require external funding from financial institutions with imperfect powers of contract enforcement. In the absence of microfinance, only large-scale, collateralised loans are available through the traditional banking sector. Under such circumstances, initial inequalities persist as only the wealthy are able to acquire these loans, and as the small-scale enterprise is either not feasible or not profitable. With the introduction of microfinance, this venture is made both possible and attractive through the provision of non-collateralised loans and other features of microlending arrangements. Poverty and inequality are reduced as a result.

Suggested Citation

  • Soyolmaa Batbekh & Keith Blackburn, 2008. "On the Macroeconomics of Microfinance," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 106, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:man:cgbcrp:106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/soss/cgbcr/discussionpapers/dpcgbcr106.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2000. "Screening by the Company You Keep: Joint Liability Lending and the Peer Selection Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 601-631, July.
    2. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 1999. "Group lending, local information and peer selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 27-50, October.
    3. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1995. "Group lending, repayment incentives and social collateral," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-18, February.
    4. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    5. Zeller, Manfred, 1998. "Determinants of Repayment Performance in Credit Groups: The Role of Program Design, Intragroup Risk Pooling, and Social Cohesion," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(3), pages 599-620, April.
    6. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    7. Ghatak, Maitreesh & Guinnane, Timothy W., 1999. "The economics of lending with joint liability: theory and practice," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 195-228, October.
    8. Armendariz de Aghion, Beatriz, 1999. "On the design of a credit agreement with peer monitoring," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 79-104, October.
    9. Blackburn, Keith & Bose, Niloy, 2003. "A model of trickle-down through learning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 445-466, January.
    10. Mark Wenner, 1995. "Group credit: A means to improve information transfer and loan repayment performance," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 263-281.
    11. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Timothy Besley & Timothy W. Guinnane, 1994. "Thy Neighbor's Keeper: The Design of a Credit Cooperative with Theory and a Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 491-515.
    12. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    13. Christian Ahlin & RobertM. Townsend, 2007. "Using Repayment Data to Test Across Models of Joint Liability Lending," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 11-51, February.
    14. Azariadis, Costas & Chakraborty, Shankha, 1999. "Agency Costs in Dynamic Economic Models," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 222-241, April.
    15. Sharma, Manohar & Zeller, Manfred, 1997. "Repayment performance in group-based credit programs in Bangladesh: An empirical analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(10), pages 1731-1742, October.
    16. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Peer Monitoring and Credit Markets," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 4(3), pages 351-366, September.
    17. Wydick, Bruce, 1999. "Can Social Cohesion Be Harnessed to Repair Market Failures? Evidence from Group Lending in Guatemala," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(457), pages 463-475, July.
    18. Sharma, Manohar & Zeller, Manfred, 1996. "Repayment performance in group-based credit programs in Bangladesh: an empirical analysis," FCND discussion papers 15, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    19. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1971. "Increasing risk II: Its economic consequences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 66-84, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. GEAMĂNU, Marinela & POPESCU, Barbu Bogdan, 2013. "Analysis Of Romania’S External Debt And The Implications For Foreign Relations During 2000-2013," Annals of Spiru Haret University, Economic Series, Universitatea Spiru Haret, vol. 4(3), pages 61-67.
    2. Yusupov, Nurmukhammad, 2012. "Microcredit and development in an occupational choice model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 820-823.
    3. Islam, Khan & O’Gorman, Melanie, 2019. "Microcredit contract design: A macroeconomic evaluation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Jontro Simanjuntak & Tri Ratnawati & Nekky Rahmiyati, 2017. "Economic Growth as Mediation of Regional Own Source Revenue, Investment and Asset Management on Labor Absorption and Social Welfare in Regencies/Cities in Riau Islands Province," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(8), pages 127-137, August.
    5. Marcella Corsi & Marina De Angelis & Pierluigi Montalbano, 2013. "The Gender Impact of Microfinance: The Case of Wekembe in Uganda," Working Papers CEB 13-045, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

    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. Al-Azzam, Moh'd & Carter Hill, R. & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2012. "Repayment performance in group lending: Evidence from Jordan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 404-414.
    2. Li Gan & Manuel A. Hernandez & Yanyan Liu, 2018. "Group Lending With Heterogeneous Types," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 895-913, April.
    3. Joel M. Guttman, 2006. "Repayment Performance in Group Lending Programs: A Survey," NFI Working Papers 2006-WP-01, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    4. Al-Azzam, Moh’d & Parmeter, Christopher F. & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2020. "On the complex relationship between different aspects of social capital and group loan repayment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 92-107.
    5. Thilo Klein, 2015. "Does Anti-Diversification Pay? A One-Sided Matching Model of Microcredit," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1521, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    7. Moh'd Al-Azzam & Maria Heracleous & Sudipta Sarangi, 2013. "Does the Group Leader Affect Repayment Performance Differently?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(2), pages 502-522, October.
    8. Tchakoute-Tchuigoua, Hubert, 2012. "Active risk management and loan contract terms: Evidence from rated microfinance institutions," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 427-437.
    9. Selay Sahan & Euan Phimister, 2023. "Repayment performance of joint‐liability microcredits: Metropolitan evidence on social capital and group names," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 287-311, April.
    10. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos, 2019. "20 years of research in microfinance: An information management approach," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 183-197.
    11. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Chowdhury, Prabal Roy & Sengupta, Kunal, 2014. "Sequential lending with dynamic joint liability in micro-finance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 167-180.
    12. Shyamal Chowdhury & Prabal Roy Chowdhury & Kunal Sengupta, 2014. "Sequential lending with dynamic joint liability in micro-finance," Discussion Papers 14-07, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    13. Li, Shanjun & Liu, Yanyan & Deininger, Klaus W., 2009. "How Important are Peer Effects in Group Lending? Estimating a Static Game of Incomplete Information," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49497, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Ahlin, Christian & Jiang, Neville, 2008. "Can micro-credit bring development?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 1-21, April.
    15. Tran Ba-Tri & Loc Dong Truong & Pham Phat Tien, 2024. "Impact of Monitoring Activities and Social Ties on the Repayment Problems of group-Based Lending-Evidence from Vietnam," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(8), pages 478-487, August.
    16. Kibrom A. ABAY & Bethelhem KORU & Gashaw Tadesse ABATE & Guush BERHANE, 2019. "How Should Rural Financial Cooperatives Be Best Organized? Evidence From Ethiopia," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(1), pages 187-215, March.
    17. Fenella Carpena & Shawn Cole & Jeremy Shapiro & Bilal Zia, 2013. "Liability Structure in Small-Scale Finance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(3), pages 437-469.
    18. Kasarjyan, Milada, 2011. "Improving the functioning of the rural financial markets of Armenia," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 62, number 62, September.
    19. Hameem Raees Chowdhury, 2016. "Joint-Liability in Microcredit: Evidence from Bangladesh," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 44(1), pages 105-129, March.
    20. Karaivanov, Alexander & Xing, Xiaochuan & Xue, Yi, 2020. "Bogus joint liability groups in microfinance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:man:cgbcrp:106. 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: Patrick Macnamara (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.html .

    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.