IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v25y2017i5p386-399.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Development and Microfinance: The Effect of Outreach and Profitability on Microfinance Institutions' Development Mission

Author

Listed:
  • Kerstin Lopatta
  • Magdalena Tchikov
  • Reemda Jaeschke
  • Sumit Lodhia

Abstract

According to the concept of microfinance, financial institutions ought to contribute to sustainable economic and financial systems development by offering access to credit for clients who are usually excluded from the formal banking system. However, in recent decades microfinance institutions (MFIs) have often focused on their profitability rather than the support of their poor clients. In order to empirically examine this mission drift and its consequences for MFIs' performance, we propose a model of MFIs' contribution to sustainable development as dependent on their outreach and profitability focus measured by percentages of female borrowers and profit margins, respectively. Utilizing a large transnational panel data set comprised of institutional and country‐specific data, we provide preliminary empirical evidence indicating that both extensive outreach and profitability are negatively related to development. The model further highlights that the problem of a mission drift is especially pronounced for non‐profit‐oriented MFIs. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Suggested Citation

  • Kerstin Lopatta & Magdalena Tchikov & Reemda Jaeschke & Sumit Lodhia, 2017. "Sustainable Development and Microfinance: The Effect of Outreach and Profitability on Microfinance Institutions' Development Mission," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(5), pages 386-399, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:25:y:2017:i:5:p:386-399
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Abiodun Omidiji & Nives Botica Redmayne & Dimu Ehalaiye & Ernest Gyapong, 2024. "Internal audit in microfinance institutions‐ evidence from transitional and developing economies," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 109-141, January.
    2. Srivardhini K. Jha & Nachiket Bhawe & P. Satish, 2021. "Scaling Social Enterprises through Product Diversification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-19, October.
    3. Andualem Kassegn & Ebrahim Endris, 2022. "Factors affecting loan repayment rate among smallholder farmers got loans from the Amhara Credit and Saving Institution: In the case of Habru District, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 25(1), pages 73-96, March.
    4. Simon Zaby, 2019. "Science Mapping of the Global Knowledge Base on Microfinance: Influential Authors and Documents, 1989–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-21, July.
    5. Kuruppu, Sanjaya Chinthana & Lodhia, Sumit, 2019. "Disruption and transformation: The organisational evolution of an NGO," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6).
    6. I. Berguiga & Y.Ben Said & P. Adair, 2020. "The Social and Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions in the Middle East and North Africa Region: Do Islamic Institutions Outperform Conventional Institutions?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(7), pages 1075-1100, October.
    7. Banto, Jean Michel & Monsia, Atokê Fredia, 2021. "Microfinance institutions, banking, growth and transmission channel: A GMM panel data analysis from developing countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 126-150.
    8. Jiguang Wang & Bing Ran, 2019. "Balancing Paradoxical Missions: How Does Microfinance Rebuild a Sustainable Path in Poverty Alleviation?," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(2), pages 21582440198, June.
    9. Arbolino, Roberta & Carlucci, Fabio & Cirà, Andrea & Yigitcanlar, Tan & Ioppolo, Giuseppe, 2018. "Mitigating regional disparities through microfinancing: An analysis of microcredit as a sustainability tool for territorial development in Italy," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 281-288.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:25:y:2017:i:5:p:386-399. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.