Papers by Reynaldo Marconi
Revue Tiers Monde, 2009
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Armand Colin. © Armand Colin. Tous droits réservés pour... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Armand Colin. © Armand Colin. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
Microfinance networks and the evaluation of social performance: the case of FINRURAL, Bolivia
Money with a Mission (Volume 2), 2005
Journal of International Development, 2006
The macroeconomic role of microfinance appears to have varied enormously between country cases, a... more The macroeconomic role of microfinance appears to have varied enormously between country cases, as notably exposed by the recent wave of macro-economic crises. For example, in Indonesia in the late 1990s microfinance appears to have played a notably counter-cyclical role, whereas in Bolivia, the main focus of this paper, its role was in most cases to intensify rather than restrain the crisis. We find part of the explanation for this in the behaviour of government towards microfinance (much more conciliatory towards defaulting debtors in the Bolivian case) and in the structure of demand (unfavourable, in Bolivia, to the distribution and service sector which is the main market for microenterprise). However, closer examination of the Bolivian case suggests that institutional design also played an important role. In particular, those organisations which provided savings, training and quasi-insurance services bucked the trend of rising default rates and falling lending through the crisis and did particularly well, whereas the new breed of consumer-credit microfinance organisations did particularly badly and in several cases went out of business. This experience suggests,in particular, that it may be appropriate to call into question the fashionable' minimalist' (credit-only) model of microfinance, as certainly in Bolivia it was principally the credit-plus institutions which proved more financially disciplined and more resilient to crisis. In many countries of the South, including Indonesia, Bolivia, Bangladesh and Kenya, microfinance has achieved a significant role within the macroeconomy, but this role has never been investigated on a comparative basis. Particularly in times of macro-economic crisis, it is important to know whether microfinance is likely to act as a shock-absorber , tending to restrain the magnitude of fluctuations, or as an accelerator, tending to amplify them. In relation to the recent global crisis, Patten and Rosengard (2001), have argued that in the midst of a severe macro-economic collapse in Indonesia between 1998 and 2000, lending and savings deposits within the Indonesian microfinancial system and in particular the BRI (Bank Rakyat Indonesia) unit desa system experienced continuous increase, as a consequence of which investment by small businesses was able to increase as well: microfinance was acting as a shock-absorber. But these tendencies are not seen everywhere: for example, in Bolivia, which is the focus for this study, several institutions which provided much of the motive force for the Bolivian economy during the boom of the 1990s (Rhyne, 2001) declined even more severely than the national economy, and microfinance, prima facie, has exercised scarcely any countercyclical influence 1 Rhyne(2001), table 2.1, states that between 1985 and 1989 the share of manufacturing within the informal sector declined from 31% to 17%, whilst the share of trade and services grew from 35% to 56%. 2 Fondos financieros privados(FFPs): nonbank financial institutions authorised, unlike NGOs, to take deposits from the public. 3 The entire microfinance sector earned a return on assets of 4.8% in 1997, which had fallen to -0.5 per cent by December 2002. This 'defences against risk' dummy variable is used in the estimation of Table (the investment function) above. We expect that investment will be positively related to it; rather weakly, it is.
The FINRURAL impact evaluation service – a cost-effectiveness analysis
Small Enterprise Development, 2004
During the period of economic crisis from 1999 to date, when the Bolivian microfinance industry w... more During the period of economic crisis from 1999 to date, when the Bolivian microfinance industry was undergoing turmoil and facing public hostility, the microfinance networking organization FINRURAL carried out (in 2002) impact evaluations on eight of its partner microfinance organizations (MFOs). The evaluations went beyond measuring institutional performance to assessing the impact of the MFOs on their clients and even non-clients among their target group, using a range of over 30 performance indicators. This article briefly summarizes the impact on clients: better-off clients generally experienced positive impacts on income, investment and employment, but some impacts on the income and investment of poorer clients were negative. The cost-effectiveness of the impact evaluation programme of FINRURAL is then assessed. This effectiveness was seen as particularly valuable in terms of enabling organizations to broaden the range of services they offer and create publicity material. A further indication of the ...
Group dynamics, gender and microfinance in Bolivia
Journal of International Development, 2004
... Loan modality Village banks with Solidarity groups, with the solidarity groups exception of F... more ... Loan modality Village banks with Solidarity groups, with the solidarity groups exception of FIE, Caja ... FINRURAL, Microfinanzas, December 2002 edition; well-being indicators from preliminary results of impact evaluation studies of microfinance organisations conducted ...
The Influence of Regulation on the Contribution of Microfinance to Development: The Case of Bolivia
Bolivia, a microfinance pioneer, is also among the first countries that started regulating this a... more Bolivia, a microfinance pioneer, is also among the first countries that started regulating this activity. Firmly supported by international institutions, the country’s regulatory framework was designed to promote a commercial vision of the sector, encouraging growth and sustainability. The rules put into place standardized practices and gave priority to profitability and stability. Nevertheless, they hampered microfinance service providers from meeting the social mission they had initially set themselves. Given these shortcomings, the government introduced new public policies to put pressure on providers to intervene more in rural and productive sectors. To overcome these contradictory constraints, some actors put forward norms that combine social and financial criteria. In the current context, such evolutions can contribute to thought/discussions on how to improve financial regulation.
Impact of the Global Crises (Financial, Economic and Food): The Case of Microfinance in Latin America
The Financial Crisis and Developing Countries, 2011
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Papers by Reynaldo Marconi