Group lending has been widely adopted in the past thirty years by many microfinance institutions as a means to mitigate information asymmetries when delivering credit to the poor. This paper proposes an empirical method to address the potential omitted-variable problem resulting from unobserved group types when modeling the repayment behavior of group members. We estimate the model using a rich dataset from a group-lending program in India. The estimation results support our model specification and show the advantages of relying on a type-varying method when analyzing the probability of default of group members. In particular, our model helps to better understand the factors driving repayment behavior, which may differ across group types, and shows a higher predictive power than standard single-agent choice models.

Identifying policies which can improve water sector management is critically important given the global burden of water-related disease. Each year, 1 in 10 child deaths—roughly 800,000 in total—is the direct result of diarrhea. Can private-sector participation (PSP) in the urban piped water sector improve child health? The author uses child-level data from 39 African countries during 1986–2010 to show that introducing PSP decreases diarrhea among urban dwelling children under five years of age by 5.6 percentage points, or 35 percent of its mean prevalence. PSP also leads to greater reliance on piped water. To attribute causality, the author exploits time variation in the private water market share controlled by African countries’ former colonizers. A placebo analysis reveals that PSP does not affect symptoms of respiratory illness in the same children, nor does it affect a rural control group unaffected by PSP.

This study has been conducted in order to generate evidence of the visibility of exit from farm input subsidies in an African context. The study simulates the impact of alternative exit strategies from Malawi’s farm input subsidy program on maize markets. The simulation is conducted using a multiequation partial equilibrium model of the national maize market, which is sequentially linked via a price-linkage equation to local rural maize markets. The model accounts for market imperfections prevailing in the country that arise from government price interventions. Findings show that some alternative exit strategies have negative and sustained impacts on maize yields, production, and acreage allocated to maize over the simulation period. Market prices rise steadily as a result of the implementation of different exit strategies. Despite higher maize prices, domestic maize consumption remains fairly stable, with a slow but increasing trend over the simulation period. Results further suggest that exit strategies that are coupled with improvements in agricultural extension services have the potential to offset the negative impacts of the removal or scaling down of agricultural input subsidies. The study findings demonstrate the difficulty of feasibly removing farm input subsidies. Study recommendations are therefore relevant for policymakers and development partners debating removal or implementation of farm input subsidies.

The conventional wisdomaboutcreditmarketshas been radically alteredin recent years through the introduction of elements of moral hazard,adverseselectionofrisk,and quality-price relationships. Important empiricalstudies have been published which are leading to vastly different policyimplications. This analysis has not been explicitly extended to informalcredit markets so far, although it is widely recognized that credit transactedoutside the banking circuit is quantitatively huge and qualitatively critical,especially in developing countries.This book combines the new theoretical approach to credit markets withcertain precepts of the New Institutional Economics in order to analyzeinformal credit markets. While the formal financial institutions in developingcountries carry out credit transactions within the limits set by the marketenvironment and by government policies, informal institutions evolve by aparticular selection of modes of economic behavior which are responses tointrinsic imperfections of the market. The informal sector enhances trust bymakingexistingtiesanintegralcomponentofcreditcontracts:thecontractualcomponent of informal credit capitalizes on the personalistic (social andeconomic) relationships between the transacting parties.

In this book Christian Prem features new innovations on several levels. On a conceptual level he presents a complete restructuring and modularisation of the field of lending theory. On a formal level he bestows great care on providing precise definitions and promotes notational standardisation. On a technical level the development of an algorithm to solve repayment games automatically is thoroughly documented. Eventually, new theoretic results on the performance of various credit schemes are established, the quality of existing lending schemes is scrutinised and new more efficient mechanisms are presented. The content therefore inspires theorists as well as it provides well-grounded advice to practitioners in the lending industry. Altogether this thesis is a major step towards improving the quality and applicability of lending theory.

India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realized thus has important policy implications. We use a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short- and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of NREGS. Triple difference estimates suggest that participants significantly increase consumption (protein and energy intake) in the short run and accumulate more nonfinancial assets in the medium term. Direct benefits exceed program-related transfers and are most pronounced for scheduled castes and tribes and households supplying casual labor. Asset creation via program-induced land improvements is consistent with a medium-term increase in assets by nonparticipants and increases in wage income in excess of program cost.

While numerous studies exist that evaluate the impacts of land reform on household investment behavior, land productivity, and land rental market activities, the literature is thin in terms of showing the direct food securities impacts of land tenure reforms. This study, thus, uses five rounds of household panel data from Tigray, Ethiopia, collected in the period 1998–2010 to assess the impacts of a land registration and certification program that aimed to strengthen tenure security and how it has contributed to increased food availability and thus food security in this food-deficit region. Our first survey took place just a year before the intervention (the land certification program). Our panel data in combination with the “years of certificate ownership” variable allow us to assess the dynamic impacts on food (calorie) availability of strengthened tenure security. Anthropometric data also allow us to assess potential child nutrition impacts of the reform 8–12 years after its implementation. Results show that land certification appears to have contributed to enhanced calorie availability (calorie intake), and more so for female-headed households, either through enhanced land rental market participation or increased investment and productivity on owner-operated land. Results also show that members of households that accessed additional land through the land rental market had a significantly higher body mass index. Though results show that land rental market participation is enhancing production efficiency, high transaction costs in that market suggest there are still unrealized gains from trade. Thus, the recent restrictive regional land law that allows for only short-term rental contracts and does not allow more than 50 percent of land to be rented out may threaten future tenure security and may undermine the benefits from the existing tenure reform.

The severe consequences of the global financial crisis 2008-2009 and numerous accounting frauds and financial scandals over the last fifteen years have let to calls for more ethical and responsible actions in all economic activities including consumption, investing, governance and regulation. Despite the fact that ethics in business and corporate social responsibility rules have been adopted in various countries, more efforts have to be devoted to motivate and empower more actors to integrate ethical behavior and rules in making business and managerial decisions. The Research Handbook of Finance and Sustainability will provide the readers but particularly investors, managers, and policymakers with comprehensive coverage of the issues at the crossroads of finance, ethics and sustainable development as well as proposed solutions, while focusing on three different levels: corporations, investment funds, and financial markets.

For corporate managers, maximization of the profits and the market value of the firm is a prime objective. The logical working out of this principle in multinational enterprises has led to an intense focus on transfer pricing between related companies, principally on account of the very attractive tax advantages made possible. Inevitably, numerous countries have established transfer pricing legislation designed to combat the distortions and manipulations that are inherent in such transactions. This important book, one of the first in-depth analysis of the current worldwide working of transfer pricing in intra-group financing and its resonance in law, presents the relevant issues related to loans, financial guarantees, and cash pooling; analyses an innovative possible approach to these issues; and describes new methodologies that can be implemented in practice in order to make intra-group financing more compliant with efficient corporate financing decisions and the generally accepted OECD arm’s length principle. Comparing the tax measures implemented in the corporate tax law systems of forty countries, this study investigates such aspects of intra-group financing as the following: – corporate finance theories, studies, and surveys regarding financing decisions; – application of the arm’s length principle to limit the deductibility of interest expenses; – impact of the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project; – transfer pricing issues related to intra-group financing; – credit risk in corporate finance; – rationales utilized by credit rating agencies; and – the assessment of arm’s length nature of intra-group financing. The author describes ways in which the application of the arm’s length principle can be strengthened and how the related risk of distortion and manipulation can be minimized. The solutions and methodologies proposed are applicable to any business sector. Given that determination of the arm’s length nature of transactions between related companies is one of the most difficult tasks currently faced by taxpayers and tax administrations around the world, this thorough assessment and analysis will prove extraordinarily useful for in-house and advisory practitioners, corporate officers, academics, international organizations, and government officials charged with finding effective responses to the serious issues raised. In addition to its well-researched analysis, the book’s comparative overview of how loans, financial guarantees, and cash pooling are currently addressed by OECD Member States and by their national courts is of great practical value in business decision making.

In this comparative study of programmes against poverty in developing countries, the authors argue that building sustainable, target group-oriented financial institutions is important and feasible, and that it is likely to have greater development impact than the channelling of external funds to poor target groups (small and micro-scale business, small farmers, and women). The analysis has far-reaching implications for development policy and will interest development specialists, policymakers, and scholars of development finance and international banking.