Search

The performance of the agricultural sector has been relatively poor considering the attitude of existing financial institutions to the support of the sector. Informal credit supply is limited while formal credit supply is often inaccessible to smallholder farmers. Therefore, borrower’s characteristics that determine access to formal and informal sources of credit were examined. Data collected by the Africa Rice Centre from Niger State in 2009 were used. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to obtain a sample of 373 out of 470 rice farmers from whom information was collected. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logit model were then used to analyse the data. Results revealed that agricultural credit programmes and village residents in the formal and informal credit sectors respectively were the accessible sources of credit. The results also revealed that access to formal credit was significantly increased by experience in rice farming, expenses on fertilizer input and rice income while access to informal credit was significantly increased by gender, duration of village residency, experience in rice farming and expenses on fertilizer input. It is recommended that a suitable credit support programme for access to formal credit should be introduced.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for China. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January- December 2010). The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform.

A major problem in the transition countries of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) during the transition was the breakdown of the relationships of farms with input suppliers and output markets. The simultaneous privatization and restructuring of the farms and of the up- and downstream companies in the agrifood chain has caused major disruptions. The result is that many farms and rural households face serious constraints in accessing essential inputs (feed, fertilizer, seeds, capital, etc.) and in selling their products. The problems are worsened by the lack of public institutions necessary to support market-based transactions, such as for enforcing property rights and contractual agreements. The objective of the study is to analyze Vertical Coordination (VC) in agrifood supply chains in ECA and to identify options for improved policies, institutions, and investments which Governments could make, and which the World Bank could support, in order to improve links in the agricultural marketing and processing chain and increase access of farmers to input and output markets. This is especially important in those countries where contractual arrangements are slow to develop. It is also important if farmers are to be lifted out of subsistence farming and into a modern agrifood economy.

This report was initiated at the request of the Iraqi government to get a better understanding of the overall financial sector in Iraq. The main objective of the report was to develop a comprehensive assessment of the financial sector. This report takes a first look at the overall financial system of Iraq with a forward looking approach. Key findings of the report are: 1) Iraq's financial sector is dominated by the banking system, with most assets held by state-owned banks; 2) many private banks are in the process of developing modern banking practices, but still need further strengthening and consolidation; 3) other financial markets are concentrated at the Iraqi stock exchange but capitalization is low, and few instruments are traded; 3) the insurance sector is small, dominated by state- owned enterprises, and is not supervised; 4) weak financial infrastructure is a clear impediment to access to finance; and 5) Small Medium Enterprises (SME) and microfinance is not well developed.

Agricultural investments made by developing countries and multilateral development banks (MDBs) have declined in recent decades. This decline is associated with a slowdown in the growth of agriculture productivity. Most development institutions have recognized the damage caused by this past neglect, in part evident in rising food prices, and renewed attention to agriculture and agribusiness is emerging. But this renewed interest will need to deliver results, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the MDBs have had the least success but where the needs and opportunities are enormous. This paper synthesizes recent work by the independent evaluation agency members of the Evaluation Cooperation Group (ECG) and incorporates lessons from related research by MDBs and from the academic literature on agriculture and agribusiness. The objectives of the paper, in addition to distilling evaluative lessons for agriculture and agribusiness, are to examine the key constraints on the sector and to provide evaluators, operational staff, and policy makers with an evaluative perspective on interventions in countries at different stages of development.

The global financial crisis and ensuing credit crunch has revived the discussion on the role of public sector in the financial system around the world and in El Salvador, authorities have announced plans to step up their activities. A clearly defined strategy for the public banks, focused on complementing private sector activity, is necessary as their activities expand to improve access to finance and diversify the sources of funding. Any process of growth needs to accompany by improvement in risk management processes, governance arrangements and enhanced supervision. Going forward, the two public retail banks should increase their specialization in different market segments. The development bank role can be enhanced while maintaining its second tier status. To make the guarantee funds effective, in addition to scale their size, several operational features need to be improved.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a major role in economic development, particularly in emerging countries. Access to finance remains a key constraint to SME development in emerging economies. Closing the credit gap for formal SMEs will be less daunting than for informal SMEs. The SME finance gap is the result of a mismatch between the needs of the small firms and the supply of financial services, which typically are easier for larger firms to access. Deficiencies in the enabling environment and residual market failures have motivated government interventions to foster SME access to financing. The stocktaking exercise confirms the rise in various parts of the world of specific business models aimed at providing financial services to SMEs in a cost-effective manner. Effective SME financing models can be implemented in different country and market environments, but greater outreach is achieved in the most developed environments for the financial sector. Although SME banking and microfinance models are successfully being rolled out in an increasing number of countries and regions, equity financing remains a challenge in developing economies. The role of international finance institutions (IFIs) and development finance institutions (DFIs) to foster SME financing in the developing world has been significant so far. Increasing access to finance can only be successful if qualitative aspects are taken into account.

Until recently rigorous impact evaluations have been rare in the area of finance and private sector development. One reason for this is the perception that many policies and projects in this area lend themselves less to formal evaluations. However, a vanguard of new impact evaluations on areas as diverse as fostering microenterprise growth, microfinance, rainfall insurance, and regulatory reform demonstrates that in many circumstances serious evaluation is possible. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize and distill the policy and implementation lessons emerging from these studies, use them to demonstrate the feasibility of impact evaluations in a broader array of topics, and thereby help prompt new impact evaluations for projects going forward. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.

This case study describes the history and business model of the Rural and Community Bank (RCB) network in Ghana, analyzes its performance, identifies key issues, and makes recommendations on the way forward. The study analyzes the service delivery and financial performance of the RCBs. Before the establishment of RCBs in the late 1970s and the subsequent expansion of other service providers into rural areas, access to institutional credit for farm and nonfarm activities was scarce. The main sources of credit were moneylenders and traders that charged very high interest rates. In many rural communities, secure, safe, and convenient savings and payment facilities hardly existed. The first RCB was established in a farming community in the central region of Ghana in 1976. Rural communities showed tremendous interested in the community ownership and management features of RCBs, and by 1984 the number of RCBs reached 106. The introduction of a check payment system for cocoa farmers also spurred the establishment of local banks in many communities. The financial performance of many RCBs started to decline, however, for several reasons, including a drought that affected the country in 1983, weak governing ability, conflicts within boards of directors, and ineffective management in many RCBs. By the end of 2008, 127 RCBs were in operation with a total 584 service outlets. RCBs are regulated by Ghana's central bank, the Bank of Ghana, and thereby form part of the country's regulated financial sector. RCBs are the largest providers of formal financial services in rural areas and represent about half of the total banking outlets in Ghana.

El acceso al crédito se considera como uno de los mayores problemas que deben afrontar las Pymes para su supervivencia y crecimiento. Este documento describe un modelo de dinámica de sistemas basado en el caso de una empresa manufacturera de tamaño mediano localizada en Colombia. El modelo integra aspectos operativos y financieros de la empresa e incluye variables asociadas con el crédito comercial y el crédito bancario. Se realizó un análisis de sensibilidad sobre el modelo con el fin de encontrar variables con un alto nivel de apalancamiento sobre los resultados deseados. Dichos resultados indican que las políticas operativas y financieras, cuando se aplican de manera aislada, no son suficientes para resolver los problemas de estancamiento de la empresa. Una combinación apropiada de acceso a crédito, condiciones de crédito, y políticas operativas y financieras adecuadas, parece ser la manera más conveniente para manejar la complejidad inherente a la supervivencia y crecimiento de las Pymes. Access to credit has been considered as one of the main problems that SMEs have to deal with in order to survive and keep growing. This document describes a system dynamics model based on the case of a medium-sized manufacturing firm located in Colombia. The model integrates operational and financial aspects of the firm, including variables associated with trade credit and bank’s credit. A sensitivity analysis is made in order to find high leverage variables. The results obtained indicate that operational and financial policies, when applied alone, are not sufficient to solve the firm’s stagnation problem.

Coffee is an ecologically and economically significant crop for Haiti. It is not only the main source of income for more than 100,000 farmers, but the coffee ecosystem also sustains a large part of the remaining tree cover (currently at less than 1.5 percent of land) of the country. This report does not aim to detail the structural constraints impacting upon the Haitian coffee sub-sector. Instead, it describes the risks affecting the existing supply chain in terms of their potential impact and prioritizes the risks and areas requiring attention for risk management, investment, and capacity building. The Haitian coffee industry is constrained by significant systemic problems which have contributed to its decline over the years. Some of these major constraints include: (1) the structure of the coffee creole garden which contributes to low on-farm coffee productivity; (2) a land tenure system which inhibits long term investment; (3) poor transportation and logistics infrastructure; (4) limited access to credit and high interest rates; (5) aging coffee trees and farmers; (6) waning government interest and support for the coffee sub-sector; (7) lack of industry level coordination; and (8) a lack of international and domestic promotion of the Haitian coffee industry.

This paper analyses how farm access to credit affects farm input allocation and farm efficiency in the CEE countries. Drawing on a unique farm level panel data with 37,409 observations and employing a matching estimator we are able to control for the key source of endogeneity – unoberserved heterogeneity. We find that farms are credit constrained both in the short-run as well as in the long-run, but that credit constraint is asymmetric between inputs. Our estimates suggest that farm access to credit increases TFP up to 1.9% per 1000 EUR of additional credit. The use of variable inputs and capital investment increases up to 2.3% and 29%, respectively, per 1000 EUR of additional credit. Due to credit-financed investment in labour-saving farm equipment, labour use reduces for low level of credit Farms are found not to be credit constrained with respect to land.

The main objective of this toolkit is to provide technical advice and guidance to World Bank Group staff, donor institutions, government officials and other practitioners on the implementation of secured transactions law and institutional reforms in emerging market countries. However, the Toolkit has not been designed to eliminate the need for in-person expert advice for governments that undertake to introduce a secured transactions system. It is necessary to take into account the factors that are unique to each jurisdiction. The content of the Toolkit will guide the reader through the various stages of the project cycle (identification, diagnostic, solution design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation) involved in the introduction of secured transactions reforms. The recommendations presented in the Toolkit are based on IFC s experience in the secured transactions area, the contributions of a number of experts in this field, existing literature, and reform experience in a number of emerging market countries and the existing best practices in jurisdictions with advanced secured transactions systems. While the Toolkit does not cover all aspects of secured transactions reform, it addresses the most important elements of such reform. The Toolkit does not address secured financing systems involving immovable property as collateral. Chapter one contains a brief discussion of the economic rationale for modern secured transactions systems. Chapter two describes the main elements that a proper diagnostic study of the state of secured transactions in a country should contain. Chapter three provides an overview of project management techniques required to support the full project cycle. One of the most important parts of the Toolkit, chapter four, which deals with the implementation of the reform, includes sections on building consensus for the reform, developing and enacting the necessary laws and regulations, designing and implementing a secured transactions registry, building local awareness and conducting secured transactions training. Chapter five of the Toolkit elaborates in detail the monitoring and evaluation strategy that should be employed following the implementation of the project to assess the effect and impact of reforms. Finally, the toolkit contains a number of annexes that include tools available to develop the different phases of the project as well as technical information.

Studies of peer-to-peer lending in the USA find that female borrowers have better chances of getting funds than males. Is differential treatment of borrowers of different sexes a common feature of peer-to-peer lendingmarkets or is it subject to specific businessmodels, ways of fixing loan contracts and even national financial systems? We aim at answering this question by providing evidence on loan procurement at the largest German peer-to-peer lending platform Smava.de. Our results show that gender does not affect individual borrower's chances of funding success on this platform, ceteris paribus. Hence, gender discrimination seems to be a platform-specific phenomenon rather than a common attribute of this innovative form of credit markets.

One of the problems in discussing one-stop shops is that everyone seems to have a different idea of what one is. There have been one-stop shops since at least the 1920s, mostly in the retail trade, epitomized by the development of supermarkets and, in recent years, internet sales outlets. This book is about one particular type of service, namely, business registration, and the various one-stop shops that exist now and might exist in the future. If there is confusion about what constitutes a one-stop shop, there are also a variety of views about business registration. In some countries all businesses have to be registered, in others, only those companies with a legal existence separate from their owners. In some countries, registration is the responsibility of the courts; in others, it is an administrative function handled by a government ministry, semi-autonomous agency, or chamber of commerce. Registration may be a function of a central institution or may be affected at a local level. In all these areas, there is change when it comes to implementing a one-stop shop. It is hardly surprising therefore that there are many different views about what constitutes, or should constitute, a one-stop shop.

The point of departure of this paper is that in the absence of effectively functioning asset markets the distribution of wealth matters for efficiency. Inefficient asset markets depress total factor productivity (TFP) in two ways: first, by not allowing efficient firms to grow to the size that they should achieve (this could include many great firms that are never started); and second, by allowing inefficient firms to survive by depressing the demand for factors (good firms are too small) and hence factor prices. Both of these effects are dampened when the wealth of the economy is in the hands of the most productive people, again, for two reasons: first, because they do not rely as much on asset markets to get outside resources into the firm; and second, because wealth allows them to self insure and therefore they are more willing to take the right amount of risk. None of this, however, tells us that efficiency enhancing redistributions must always be targeted to the poorest. There is some reason to believe that a lot of the inefficiency lies in the fact that many medium size firms are too small.

Doing business in India 2009 is the first country specific subnational report of the doing business series that measures business regulations and their enforcement across India. Doing business in India 2009 covers 10 out of the 12 previously measured cities, and documents their progress. It adds 7 new locations, expanding the study to 17 locations. Comparisons with the rest of the world are based on the indicators in doing business 2009. The indicators in doing business in India 2009 are also comparable with the data in other subnational and regional doing business reports. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where, and why. Other areas that significantly affect business, such as a country's proximity to markets, the quality of infrastructure services (other than services related to the trading across borders indicator), the security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions, or the underlying strength of institutions, are not directly studied by doing business.

We present a banking model with imperfect competition in which borrowers' access to credit is improved when banks are able to transfer credit risks. However, the market for credit risk transfer (CRT) works smoothly only if the quality of loans is public information. If the quality of loans is private information, banks have an incentive to grant unprofitable loans in order to transfer them to other parties, leading to an increase in aggregate risk. Nevertheless, the introduction of CRT generally increases welfare in our setup. However, under private information, higher competition induces an expansion of loans to unprofitable firms, which in the limit offsets the welfare gains from CRT completely.

Using data from a survey of 91 banks in 45 countries, the authors characterize bank financing to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) around the world. They find that banks perceive the SME segment to be highly profitable, but perceive macroeconomic instability in developing countries and competition in developed countries as the main obstacles. To serve SMEs banks have set up dedicated departments and decentralized the sale of products to the branches. However, loan approval, risk management, and loan recovery functions remain centralized. Compared with large firms, banks are less exposed to small enterprises, charge them higher interest rates and fees, and experience more non-performing loans from lending to them. Although there are some differences in SMEs financing across government, private, and foreign-owned banks -- with the latter being more likely to engage in arms-length lending -- the most significant differences are found between banks in developed and developing countries. Banks in developing countries tend to be less exposed to SMEs, provide a lower share of investment loans, and charge higher fees and interest rates. Overall, the evidence suggests that the lending environment is more important than firm size or bank ownership type in shaping bank financing to SMEs.

Contents of the report are: introduction; by Penelope J. Brook, and Sabine Hertveldt; how to reform in 3 months. Azerbaijan registers businesses faster by setting-up a one-stop shop; by Svetlana Bagaudinova, Dahlia Khalifa, and Givi Petriashvili; one-stop shopping in Portugal; by Camille Ramos; competitiveness from innovation, not inheritance; by Karim Ouled Belayachi, and Jamal Ibrahim Haidar; harnessing the internet to streamline procedures; by K. Latha; creating a new profession from scratch; by Carolin Geginat, and Jana Malinska; how to raise revenues by lowering fees; by Jamal Ibrahim Haidar; when enough is enough; by Cemile Hacibeyoglu; slashing the time to register property from 18 months to 15 days; by Roger Coma-Cunill, and Marie Delion; bringing more credit to the private sector; by Valerie Marechal, and Rachel (Raha) Shahid-Saless; protecting minority shareholders to boost investment; by Jean Michel Lobet; giving a facelift to the Turkish tax system; by Caroline Otonglo, and Tea Trumbic; a public-private partnership brings order to Aqaba's port; by Doina Cebotari, and Allen Dennis; fighting entrenched interests to enforce judgments faster; by Lior Ziv; pragmatism leads the way in setting up specialized commercial courts; by Sabine Hertveldt; enforcing contracts quickly, with help from the neighbors; by Anthony Ford, and Oliver Lorenz; and repaying creditors without imprisoning debtors; by Mema Beye, and Joanna Nasr.

A recent, comprehensive database is used to investigate the link between inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and innovation activity in China. The results of the analysis suggest that private and collectively owned firms with foreign capital participation and those with good access to domestic bank loans innovate more than other firms do. Among enterprises not owned by the state, inward FDI at the sectoral level is positively associated with domestic innovative activity only among firms that engage in their own research and development or that have good access to domestic finance. At the sector level the effect of inward FDI into technology transfer is distinguished from the effect on domestic credit opportunities. FDI affecting credit is of little significance for state-owned enterprises and is independent of their access to finance. In contrast, better access to credit is an important channel through which FDI affects the innovation of domestic private and collectively owned enterprises. Copyright The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / the world bank . All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

Although it is widely accepted that financial development is associated with higher growth, the evidence on the channels through which credit affects growth on the micro-level is scant. Using data from a cross section of Bulgarian firms, the authors estimate the impact of access to credit (as proxied by indicators of whether firms have access to a credit or overdraft facility) on productivity. To overcome potential omitted variable bias of OLS estimates, they use information on firms'past growth to instrument for access to credit. The authors find credit to be positively and strongly associated with total factor productivity. These results are robust to a wide range of robustness checks.

Doing Business in Egypt 2008 covers three topics at the sub national level: starting a business, dealing with licenses and registering property. These indicators have been selected because they cover areas of local jurisdiction and practice. In the last two years, doing business in Egypt has become more affordable the minimum capital required to start a business and the costs of registering property and dealing with licenses have been slashed. Doing Business in Egypt 2008 records all procedures required for a business in the construction industry to build a standardized warehouse. Doing Business in Egypt 2008 records the full sequence of procedures necessary when a business purchases land and a building to transfer the property title from another business so that the buyer can use the property for expanding its business, as collateral in taking new loans or, if necessary, to sell to another business. The ease of doing business index is limited in scope. The Doing Business indicators provide a new empirical data set that may improve understanding of these issues.

This paper studies the relationships between managers’ a¢ liations with Freema- sonry and companies' performance. Using a unique data set of 410 companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange between 1895 and 1902, I find that Masonic managers were associated with greater access to credit in small and young companies whose se- curities where traded over the counter. These companies earned higher profits, but the effect is not statistically significant. On the other hand, large publicly quoted corpora- tions that were managed by Freemasons did not obtain greater access to credit; they had lower profiys and lower Tobin's Q. These findings help to understand how social networks are related to companies' performances. Although social networks help to resolve agency problems between lenders and borrowers in firms that have difficulties in obtaining debt finance, in larger publicly quoted companies they are associated with worse agency conflicts between managers and shareholders and with worse economic performance.

This paper studies the relationships between managers’ a¢ liations with Freema- sonry and companies' performance. Using a unique data set of 410 companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange between 1895 and 1902, I find that Masonic managers were associated with greater access to credit in small and young companies whose se- curities where traded over the counter. These companies earned higher profits, but the effect is not statistically significant. On the other hand, large publicly quoted corpora- tions that were managed by Freemasons did not obtain greater access to credit; they had lower profiys and lower Tobin's Q. These findings help to understand how social networks are related to companies' performances. Although social networks help to resolve agency problems between lenders and borrowers in firms that have difficulties in obtaining debt finance, in larger publicly quoted companies they are associated with worse agency conflicts between managers and shareholders and with worse economic performance.

This paper studies the relationships between managers’ a¢ liations with Freema- sonry and companies' performance. Using a unique data set of 410 companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange between 1895 and 1902, I find that Masonic managers were associated with greater access to credit in small and young companies whose se- curities where traded over the counter. These companies earned higher profits, but the effect is not statistically significant. On the other hand, large publicly quoted corpora- tions that were managed by Freemasons did not obtain greater access to credit; they had lower profiys and lower Tobin's Q. These findings help to understand how social networks are related to companies' performances. Although social networks help to resolve agency problems between lenders and borrowers in firms that have difficulties in obtaining debt finance, in larger publicly quoted companies they are associated with worse agency conflicts between managers and shareholders and with worse economic performance.

The authors use firm-level, cross-county data from Investment Climate surveys in 49 developing countries to investigate an important channel through which informality can affect productivity: access to credit and external finance. Informality is measured as self-reported lack of tax compliance in a sample of registered firms that also answered questions on a large set of other characteristics. The authors find that more tax compliance is significantly associated with more access to credit both in OLS and in country fixed effects estimates. In particular, the link between credit and formality is stronger in high-formality countries. This suggests that firms'balance sheets are relatively more informative for financial institutions in environments where signal extraction is a less noisy process. The authors'results are robust to the inclusion of a wide array of correlates and to two-stage estimation.

Mounting evidence suggests that excessive job protection reduces employment and labor market flows, hinders technological innovations, pushes workers into the informal sector, and hurts vulnerable groups by depriving them of job opportunities. Flexible labor markets stimulate job creation, investment, and growth, but they create job insecurity and displace some workers. How can the costs of such insecurity and displacements be minimized while ensuring that the labor market remains flexible? Each of the main unemployment income support systems (unemployment insurance, unemployment assistance, unemployment insurance savings accounts, severance pay, and public works) has strengths and weaknesses. Country-specific conditions, chief among them labor market and other institutions, the capacity to administer each type of system, and the size of the informal sector, determine which system is best suited to developing and transition countries.

The purpose of this study is twofold. On one hand, the objective is to assess the impact of new and more complex contracting schemes, as opposed to traditional marketing channels, on small farmers’ welfare. On the other hand, the study explores which may be the critical factors that determine the small farmers’ participation in these institutional arrangements. In this context, two critical factors are stressed. The first one has to do with access to credit and the second one is the size of the agricultural plot. In order to examine the decision of farmers to access the dynamic markets, the paper follows the study of Lapar et al (2003). The paper also follows impact evaluation techniques to identify the differences in the performance of farmers with access to dynamic markets and those without access. As it can be seen, in all cases, the difference between farmers with access and those without access is positive. This implies that having access to dynamic markets has positive impacts on the welfare of farmers. The results show that the farmers linked to the dynamic markets gain two cents of a dollar more per kilogram of potato. Although, in average potato producers in the Sierra need about 7,500 US$ additional credit to access dynamic markets, the variance between producers is huge. Some farmers, for example, are extremely close to gaining access the market and just a small increase on the credit line would allow them to achieve that. On the other hand, an important group of small farmers —more than half of them — are much further away from accessing the market; about 25,000 soles (US$ 7,500). In this case the amount needed to access the market is almost three times higher than the average sales of a farmer selling to the traditional market. Moreover, 10% of the formers in the sample need over 15,150 US$ to ensure access to the market, which is the maximum credit line registered in the sample of farmers with access to dynamic markets. On the other hand the lack of scale of the producers is another major bottleneck. Our simulations showed that increase of their plot size to a minimum of five hectares (optimal size according to the industry) increases their sales to dynamic markets in 16%. However, the impact of new and more complex contracting schemes, as opposed to traditional marketing channels, could reduce significantly the access gap to dynamic markets by reducing transaction costs, increasing productivity, and increasing scale production through coordination of smallholders.

In the early 1990s the World Bank launched the Regional Program on Enterprise Development in several African countries, a key component of which was the collection of manufacturing firm-level data. In this paper the authors review the research based on the data sets generated by these and subsequent firm surveys in Africa, with a special view to what they think are the most important policy implications. The authors survey the research on the African business environment, focusing on market size, risk, access to credit, labor, and infrastructure. They cover the research on how firms choose to organize themselves and how firms do business. They review the research on firm performance, including firm growth, investment and technology acquisition, and exports. They conclude with an extended discussion of the policy lessons.

This article reviews the evidence on the importance of finance for economic well-being. It provides data on the use of basic financial services by households and firms across a sample of countries, assesses the desirability of universal access, and provides an overview of the macroeconomic, legal, and regulatory obstacles to access. Despite the benefits of finance, the data show that use of financial services is far from universal in many countries, especially developing countries. Universal access to financial services has not been a public policy objective in most countries and would likely be difficult to achieve. Countries can, however, facilitate access to financial services by strengthening institutional infrastructure, liberalizing markets and facilitating greater competition, and encouraging innovative use of know-how and technology. Government interventions to directly broaden access to finance, however, are costly and fraught with risks, among others the risk of missing the targeted groups. The article concludes with recommendations for global actions aimed at improving data on access and use and suggestions on areas of further analysis to identify constraints to broadening access.

Despite recent multilateral efforts to single out child labor in debt bondage as one of the worst forms of child labor, several important questions have yet to be addressed: How pervasive is the phenomenon? Are there systematic correlations between the incidence of children in debt bondage and the economic, legislative, and financial development indicators of the economy? How does an understanding of these correlates affect the way national and international policy measures aimed at targeting this form of child labor are perceived? This article addresses each of these questions. The empirical findings suggest strong correlation between the likelihood of the incidence of child labor in debt bondage with the stage of development of an economy, the stage of financial development, and enforcement of core labor rights. Building on this evidence, the article presents a theoretical model that highlights the drawbacks and merits of a number of policies aimed at putting checks on child labor in debt bondage.

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 future path of microfinance; a coherent theory about microfinance--why it works when so many other development interventions fail; detail on a number of important microfinance topics--such as informal moneylending and savings; an important study on, and lessons from Indonesia, with detailed analysis of Bank Rakyat Indonesia; and, brief studies of many other microfinance institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Economists seeking explanations for the global financial crisis of 1997-99 are reaching consensus that a major factor was weak financial institutions, which resulted in part from inadequate government regulations. At the same time many developing countries are struggling with an overregulated financial system-one that stifles innovation and the flow of credit to new entrepreneurs and that can stunt the growth of well-established firms. In particular, too many countries are relying excessively on capital adequacy standards, which are inefficient and sometimes counterproductive. The author argues that financial systems can be reformed successfully using a 'dynamic portfolio approach' aimed at managing the incentives and constraints that affect not only financial institutions exposure to risk but also their ability to cope with it. The article sets out general principles of financial regulation and shows how the dynamic portfolio approach can help countries deal with the special problems that arise during the transition to a more liberalized economy as well as those that arise in dealing with a financial crisis similar to the 1997 crisis in East Asia.

This article aims to analyze the nature of South African entrepreneurship and to assess the extent to which obstacles and especially liquidity constraints faced by women may differ from those met by men during the phase of firm settlement. This study shows that women in the informal sector who are less educated and more burdened by unemployment are more ?necessity-based? or ?push? entrepreneurs than their male counterparts. They appear to have greater difficulty in accumulating sufficient personal assets than their male counterparts. They thus rely more often on stokvel or money lenders to access credit than men.

We study the credit supply effects of the unexpected freeze of the European interbank market, using exhaustive Portuguese loan-level data. We find that banks that rely more on interbank borrowing before the crisis decrease their credit supply more during the crisis. The credit supply reduction is stronger for firms that are smaller, with weaker banking relationships. Small firms cannot compensate the credit crunch with other sources of debt. Furthermore, the impact of illiquidity on the credit crunch is stronger for less solvent banks. Finally, there are no overall positive effects of central bank liquidity, but higher hoarding of liquidity.

This study examined the profitability and efficiency of small scale ginger production in selected Local Government Areas of Kaduna State using data collected through personal interview schedules with structured questionnaire. Results from the study showed that majority (96.0%) of ginger farmers are male with an average age and farming experience of 42 and 27 years respectively. Majority of the respondents (82.5%) are married and possess an average farm size of 3.09hectares. The average household size is 7 and up to 46% of them acquired secondary education. The results also revealed that labor, seed, fertilizer and capital inputs were significant in explaining the output. The mean technical efficiency of 0.799 indicate that an average ginger farmer in the study area will enjoy an output increase of 18.55% if management techniques are improved and he attains the level of the most efficient ginger farmer. Among the various factors affecting inefficiency, farm size and extension contact accentuated inefficiency while access to credit suppressed inefficiency. This might be an indication that the two parameters that encouraged inefficiency were over-employed. Hence, in order to attain the production frontier of the most efficient farmer, farm size should be scaled down or additional quantity of other inputs should be employed. Price fluctuation, unavailability of farm input, poor remunerative price and poor access to credit are the major constraints faced by ginger farmers in the study area. There is need for policies aimed at encouraging extension education, commercial farming, access to credit, and transport facilities.

Una de las garantias que más utilization tiene en el tráfico jurídico es la prenda sin tenencia del acreedor. Esta figura le permite al deudor conservar el bien para utilizarlo y sacar provecho del mismo, de tal manera que pueda proceder eficazmente a la satisfaction de la obligation contraída. Aunque se encontraba tipificada en el Código de Comercio, su configuration y operativa fue modificada profundamente con la Ley 1676 de 2013 de garantias mobiliarias. Este articulo utiliza el método inductivo y tiene como propósito analizar el origen de la figura y establecer la manera como se encuentra regulada actualmente en el derecho colombiano, desde una perspectiva del derecho comparado y a partir del panorama histórico en que se ha desenvuelto, haciendo referencias a su tratamiento en el Code Civil francés y a los preceptos de la Ley Modelo Interamericana sobre Garantias Mobiliarias. Todo esto a partir de los conceptos que le dan su origen: la prenda y la hipoteca. One of the securities most used within the legal market is the non-possessory pledge from the creditor. This instrument allows for the debtor to maintain the asset for its use and enjoyment and thus profit from it to be able to honor the contracted obligation. Although it was already contemplated by the Commercial Code, it was fully regulated by Act 1676 of 2013 on movable property security interests. This article intends to analyze the origin of the instrument and to establish the way it is currently regulated in Colombia, from a comparative law perspective and from the historical background it has been developed in, with references to its regulation in the French Civil Code and the principles of the Model Inter-American Law on Secured Transactions. All the above starting from the instruments that originated it, namely the pledge and the mortgage.

Access to credit remains an important tool in the development of poultry industry in Nigeria. Yet, the majority of poultry farmers in the country have no access to credit from formal sources. Th is paper therefore investigates the factors influencing access to credit by poultry farmers in Abuja. A two-stage sampling technique was used to elicit information from 107 poultry farmers in Abuja metropolis. Descriptive statistics and Heckman two-step model were employed to analyze the data. Th e results of the descriptive analysis show that commercial layer production enterprise was the most popular among the poultry farmers in Abuja, while the least was quail production. Only about 30% of the respondents had access to credit from formal sources and the majority of them got their loan from cooperative societies. Results from Heckman two-step model show that different sets of factors affect the probability of access and amount of credit. Th e factors that were found to be important in explaining access to credit include extension visits, distance to formal credit sources, hours of entrepreneurial training and commercial broiler production enterprise. Years of schooling, household size and broiler parent stock enterprise were the important factors influencing the amount of credit received. To enhance access to credit by poultry farmers in the study area, policies that will encourage the expansion of formal financial services to the rural areas and human capacity development should be strengthened.