عنوان

Essays on microfinance

TL47890

انگلیسی

Essays on microfinance

[Thesis]

Sungsam Chung

Ahlin, Christian

Michigan State University

2014

62

Committee members: Jin, Songqing; Minetti, Raoul; Zhu, Chun

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-15033-9

Ph.D.

Economics - Doctor of Philosophy

Michigan State University

2014

This dissertation consists of two chapters. The first chapter is dealing with microfinance's interest rates. Microfinance institutions' (MFIs) high interest rates have been at the center of controversy from the beginning of microfinance. One plausible and widely accepted theory, which explains MFIs' high interest rate puzzle, is that there exist fixed costs involved in making loans, say per borrower (or per loan) fixed transaction costs. However, in spite of its topicality, this fixed costs theory still remains untested empirically. Based on the theoretical operating costs function and a large data set on 526 MFIs from 75 countries, this study is the first attempt to test the fixed costs theory directly, by answering the following questions: how much of operating costs are incurred by per borrower fixed transaction costs? And how much do MFIs need to charge in order to cover their operating costs? We find that the per borrower fixed costs account or about 45% of total operating costs for a representative median MFI, which lends

Economics; Economic theory

Social sciences;Development;Interest rate;Microfinance;Religion

Paige, Shari

Ahlin, Christian

Economics - Doctor of Philosophy

Michigan State University

1612355093; 3634442

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y