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Displaying all posts under the topic of Operations
February 13, 2013
What’s Next? Understanding—and Improving—Microenterprise Performance
Hundreds of millions of people in the developing world work in microenterprises. These businesses tend to be very small, often employing only a single operator, and they tend to have difficulty growing. Yet growing evidence suggests that such businesses could increase profits by increasing investment – a number of recent studies find that the marginal return to capital among small firms in developing countries tends to be very high (i.e. de Mel et al. 2008).
January 22, 2013
What's Next: Financial Access in 2013
The microfinance space has never been a dull place. As the tumult of the last few years—debates about effectiveness, industry crises and crashes in several countries—seemingly dies down, it’s a good time to speculate about what’s next. It seems clear that “business as usual” in terms of rapid growth and expansion paired with unvarnished enthusiasm and uncritical praise is not what’s next.
So what is?
January 15, 2013
Banking the World: Empirical Foundations of Financial Inclusion
About 2.5 billion adults, just over half the world’s adult population, lack bank accounts. If we are to realize the goal of extending banking and other financial services to this vast “unbanked” population, we need to consider not only such product innovations as microfinance and mobile banking but also issues of data accuracy, impact assessment, risk mitigation, technology adaptation, financial literacy, and local context.
September 14, 2012
Managing the Difficult Trade-offs in Microfinance Regulation
A few weeks ago M-CRIL, an Indian microfinance ratings firm, published a white paper on India's evolving microfinance regulations. The overall message is that while the proposed regulatory framework is improving, it still needs work. One particular point caught my eye: