Economics focus: A partial marvel

摘要

Microcredit looks like a miracle. It involves providing un-secured small loans to poor people in developing countries whom most banks would turn away. Yet these small borrowers almost always repay their loans (and the fairly steep interest charges) on time, which suggests that they find productive uses for the money. The industry's backers make some big claims as a result: Mohammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the father of microfinance, reckons that 5% of Grameen Bank's clients exit poverty each year. Yet economists point out that there are surprisingly few credible estimates of the extent to which microcredit actually reduces poverty.