Discussion on financial ethics increasingly includes the problem of exclusion of the poorer segments of society from the financial system and access to credit. This paper explores the ethical dimensions surrounding the concept of a human right to credit. If access to credit is directly instrumental to economic development, poverty reduction and the improved welfare of all citizens, then one can proclaim, as Nobel Prize Laureate M. Yunus has done, that it is a moral necessity to establish credit as a right. Arguments both supporting and opposing the concept of a right to credit are presented. While there may be general agreement that access to financial services may provide a pathway out of poverty, granting a universal right could induce perverse effects such as overindebtedness. Bearing in mind the ultimate goal of proponents of this right as well as the potential harmful consequences, this paper offers a new perspective on the question of access to credit based on a goal-right system.
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Paper provided by Université Libre de Bruxelles, Solvay Business School, Centre Emile Bernheim (CEB) in its series Working Papers CEB with number
07-008.RS.
Find related papers by JEL classification: B0 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment Q14 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Finance
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