IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Does Regulatory Supervision Curtail Microfinance Profitability and Outreach?

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Cull, Robert
  • Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli
  • Morduch, Jonathan

Abstract

Summary Regulation allows microfinance institutions to take deposits and expand their banking functions, but complying with regulation can be costly. We examine implications for institutions' profitability and their outreach to small-scale borrowers and women, using a newly-constructed dataset on 245 leading institutions. Controlling for the non-random assignment of supervision via treatment effects and instrumental variables regressions, we find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that profit-oriented microfinance institutions respond to supervision by maintaining profit rates but curtailing outreach to women and customers that are costly to reach. Institutions with a weaker commercial focus instead tend to reduce profitability but maintain outreach.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X11000519
Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal World Development.

Volume (Year): 39 (2011)
Issue (Month): 6 (June)
Pages: 949-965

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:6:p:949-965
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev

Keywords: microfinance regulation cross-country regression global;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
  • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
  • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Barth,James R. & Caprio,Gerard & Levine,Ross, 2008. "Rethinking Bank Regulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521709309, February.
  2. Hartarska, Valentina M., 2005. "Governance and Performance of Microfinance Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24568, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
  3. David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2008. "Experimental Evidence on Returns to Capital and Access to Finance in Mexico," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 22(3), pages 457-482, November.
  4. Mersland, Roy & Øystein Strøm, R., 2009. "Performance and governance in microfinance institutions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 662-669, April.
  5. Robert Cull & Asli Demirguç-Kunt & Jonathan Morduch, 2007. "Financial performance and outreach: a global analysis of leading microbanks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 107-133, 02.
  6. Frederick J. Schroeder, 1985. "Compliance costs and consumer benefits of the electronic fund transfer act : recent survey evidence," Staff Studies 143, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  7. Hartarska, Valentina, 2005. "Governance and performance of microfinance institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1627-1643, October.
  8. Valentina Hartarska & Denis Nadolnyak, 2007. "Do regulated microfinance institutions achieve better sustainability and outreach? Cross-country evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(10), pages 1207-1222.
  9. Robert Cull & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Jonathan Morduch, 2009. "Microfinance Meets the Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 167-192, Winter.
  10. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2009. "Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 124(1), pages 423-423.
  11. Gregory E. Elliehausen, 1998. "The cost of banking regulation: a review of the evidence," Staff Studies 171, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  12. Patrick Honohan, 2004. "Financial Sector Policy and the Poor : Selected Findings and Issues," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 14874, July.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:6:p:949-965. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.