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November 1995 The history of development of U.S. and European thrift deposit institutions (banking for the poor) yields lessons for today's developing countries. The financial systems in most developing countries today have many features in common with the financial systems of the developing countries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Whether they had unlimited liability (as in Scotland in the eighteenth century), or limited liability and special charters, commercial banks dominated European and U.S. financial systems. Moreover, they were typically established by wealthy people and oriented toward businesses and other wealthy people -- they effectively represented banking for the rich by the rich. Insurance companies were underdeveloped and pension and mutual funds did not yet exist. As a result, middle- and low-income people had limited access to formal financial services and relied on informal arrangements for borrowing. Meanwhile, financial savings were unproductively hoarded under the mattress. In developing countries today this gap in the provision of financial services can be explained by the low level and unequal distribution of income and wealth, high information and transaction costs, and weak enforcement mechanisms. In Europe and the United States, over time, different types of institutions -- including savings banks, credit cooperatives, building societies, and credit unions -- emerged to fill this market gap. Many developing countries have created institutions that specialize in lending to the poor, but more must be done to help these institutions reach the poor in rural areas and assist small farmers, artisans, and traders. An integrated program to build solid institutions requires five elements for success: * Strong leadership. (Support should be given to groups, such as the Church or local officials, likely to attract people with integrity, high ideals, and commitment to the institution's success.) * A three-tier structure. * Strong emphasis on education and the dissemination of information about the workings and benefits of the institution. (Culture can be an obstacle to a thrift institution's success, as the Irish experience shows.) * An official policy that encourages self-help and avoids total reliance on external funding. External support could be made dependent on local resource mobilization and a record of monitoring and repayment. * Most important, the encouragement of active peer monitoring and the enforcement of contractual obligations. The principle of unlimited liability may not be viable in most developing countries, but government could support only regional units and local institutions that have a good record of loan repayment. This paper -- a joint product of the Finance and Private Sector Development Division, Policy Research Department, and Financial Sector Development Department -- was presented at a Bank seminar, Financial History: Lessons of the Past for Reformers of the Present, and is a chapter in a forthcoming volume, Reforming Finance: Some Lessons from History, edited by Gerard Caprio, Jr. and Dimitri Vittas.
Microfinance was pioneered in the developing world as the lending of small amounts of money to entrepreneurs who lacked the kinds of credentials and collateral demanded by banks. Similar practices spread from the developing to the developed world, reversing the usual direction of innovation, and today several hundred microfinance institutions are operating in the United States. Replicating Microfinace in the United States reviews experiences in both developing and industrialized countries and extends the applications of microlending beyond enterprise to consumer finance, housing finance, and community development finance, concentrating especially on previously underserved households and their communities.
For a long time agriculture and rural life were dismissed by many contemporaries as irrelevant or old-fashioned. Contrasted with cities as centers of intellectual debate and political decision-making, the countryside seemed to be becoming increasingly irrelevant. Today, politicians in many European countries are starting to understand that the neglect of the countryside has created grave problems. Similarly, historians are remembering that European history in the twentieth century was strongly influenced by problems connected to the production of food, access to natural resources, land rights, and the political representation and activism of rural populations. Hence, the handbook offers an overview of historical knowledge on a variety of topics related to the land. It does so through a distinctly activity-centric and genuinely European perspective. Rather than comparing different national approaches to living with the land, the different chapters focus on particular activities – from measuring to settling the land, from producing and selling food to improving agronomic knowledge, from organizing rural life to challenging political structures in the countryside. Furthermore, the handbook overcomes the traditional division between East and West, North and South, by embracing a transregional approach that allows readers to gain an understanding of similarities and differences across national and ideological borders in twentieth-century Europe.
Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.
This handbook presents a timely collection of original studies on relevant themes, policies and developments in European banking. The contributors analyse how the crisis years have had a long lasting impact on the structure of European banking and explore the regulatory architecture that has started to take form in their wake. Academic experts and senior policy makers have contributed to this volume, which is organized in five main parts. The first part presents an overview of European banking through the crisis and beyond. The second part analyses performance and innovation in EU banking markets. The third part discusses the key regulatory changes aimed at fostering financial stability. Part four looks at the relevance of cross-border banking and part five presents a detailed analysis of the main EU banking markets. This is a highly informative and carefully presented handbook, which provides thought-provoking insights into the past, present and future landscapes of European banking. It will appeal to a wide readership, from scholars and students, through to researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.