Lack of credit access is severe in low income and poor families that are normally considered to have fewer opportunities to borrow from banks due to insufficient valuable assets for collateral. These low-income households face limited opportunity to acquire new technology and working capital for agricultural production and thus tend to fall behind. As a result, providing access to finance to low-income rural households has been considered an important component of any rural development str...

This book focuses on how the demand for microfinance can be met on a global scale. It documents the contributions of institutions and of people who have led the development of commercial finance for the poor, and it analyzes the principles on which the microfinance revolution is based. In sum, this work offers a detailed overview of the development of microfinance over the past 20 years; a global view of microfinance in the developing world (largely excluding Eastern Europe); a thesis on the ...

Over the last decade, the theory that poverty in the world's poorest regions could be alleviated by providing small loans to micro-entrepreneurs has become increasingly popular. This volume examines the effectiveness of this theory when put into practice. The book presents empirical evidence drawn from comparative experiences in seven developing countries and produces some startling conclusions. This work should be essential reading for all those interested in development, poverty-reductio...

Gerard Roland's new text, Development Economics, is the first undergraduate text to recognize the role of institutions in understanding development and growth. Through a series of chapters devoted to specific sets of institutions, Roland examines the effects of institutions on growth, property rights, market development, and the delivery of public goods and services and focuses. With the most comprehensive and up to date treatment of institutions on development, Roland explores th...

Income inequality has become a global phenomenon. Rapid technological advancement and an expanding global workforce will continue to place huge pressure on wages all over the world, including Singapore. This edited volume is the product of the robust exchanges that took place in a series of closed-door discussions (CDDs) on inequality that the Institute of Policy Studies organised in the first half of 2012. The essays provide a range of views on the multi-faceted nature of inequality in Si...

Since 1945, the liberal-democratic model of capitalism spread across the globe, ultimately prevailing over communism. Over the past two decades, a new statist-authoritarian model has begun diffusing across East Asia. Rather than rejecting capitalism, authoritarian leaders harness it to uphold their rule. Based on extensive research of East Asia's largest corporations and sovereign wealth funds, this book argues that the most aggressive version of this model does not belong to China. Rather...

This is a unique insider account of the new world of unfettered finance. The author, an Asian regulator, examines how old mindsets, market fundamentalism, loose monetary policy, carry trade, lax supervision, greed, cronyism, and financial engineering caused both the Asian crisis of the late 1990s and the global crisis of 2008–9. This book shows how the Japanese zero interest rate policy to fight deflation helped create the carry trade that generated bubbles in Asia whose effects brought As...

Kuwait has made an impressive recovery from the damage and disruptions caused by the Iraqi invasion in 1990, as evidenced by the restoration of basic economic and social services, the recovery of the oil sector, the rehabilitation of infrastructure, and the steady reduction in the fiscal and balance of payments deficits. This paper examines recent developments in the Kuwaiti economy and discusses the country's medium-term policy challenges of saving for future generations, strengthening th...

The question of money, how to provide it, and how to acquire it where needed is axiomatic to development. The realities of global poverty and the inequalities between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ are clear and well documented, and the gaps between world’s richest and the world’s poorest are ever-increasing. But, even though funding development is assumed to be key, the relationship between finance and development is contested and complex.This book explores the variety of relatio...

Global governance of international banks is breaking down after the Great Financial Crisis, as national regulators are withdrawing on their home turf. New evidence presented illustrates that the global systemically important banks underpin the global financial system. This book offers solutions for the effective governance of global banks.

'Achieving the goals set by world leaders in the United Nations Millennium Declaration will be difficult without a significant improvement in the lives of slum dwellers, and the lives of slum dwellers cannot be improved without the sound and sustainable economic development that is conducive to the establishment of a strong shelter sector. As Financing Urban Shelter: Global Report on Human Settlements 2005 emphasizes, one of the key challenges in meeting the Millennium Declaration Goal on ...