IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sol/wpaper/09-015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On Mission Drift In Microfinance Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Beatriz Armendariz
  • Ariane Szafarz

Abstract

This paper sheds light on a poorly understood phenomenon in microfinance which is often referred to as a “mission drift”: A tendency reviewed by numerous microfinance institutions to extend larger average loan sizes in the process of scaling–up. We argue that this phenomenon is not driven by transaction cost minimization alone. Instead, poverty–oriented microfinance institutions could potentially deviate from their mission by extending larger loan sizes neither because of “progressive lending” nor because of “cross–subsidization” but because of the interplay between their own mission, the cost differentials between poor and unbanked wealthier clients, and region-specific characteristics pertaining the heterogeneity of their clientele. In a simple one-period framework we pin-down the conditions under which mission drift can emerge. Our framework shows that there is a thin line between mission drift and cross-subsidization, which in turn makes it difficult for empirical researchers to establish whether a microfinance institution has deviated from its poverty-reduction mission. This paper also suggests that institutions operating in regions which host a relatively small number of very poor individuals might be misleadingly perceived as deviating from their mission. Because existing empirical studies cannot tear apart between mission drift and cross-subsidization, these studies should not guide donors and socially responsible investors pertaining resource allocation across institutions offering financial services to the poor. The difficulty in tearing apart cross-subsidization and mission drift is discussed in light of the contrasting experiences between microfinance institutions operating in Latin America and South Asia.

Suggested Citation

  • Beatriz Armendariz & Ariane Szafarz, 2009. "On Mission Drift In Microfinance Institutions," Working Papers CEB 09-015.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  • Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:09-015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/53972/1/RePEc_sol_wpaper_09-015.pdf
    File Function: RePEc_sol_wpaper_09-015
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2000. "Screening by the Company You Keep: Joint Liability Lending and the Peer Selection Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 601-631, July.
    2. de Aghion, Beatriz Armendariz & Gollier, Christian, 2000. "Peer Group Formation in an Adverse Selection Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 632-643, July.
    3. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1995. "Group lending, repayment incentives and social collateral," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-18, February.
    4. Mark Schreiner, 2002. "Aspects of outreach: a framework for discussion of the social benefits of microfinance," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(5), pages 591-603.
    5. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Peer Monitoring and Credit Markets," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 4(3), pages 351-366, September.
    6. Jain, Sanjay & Mansuri, Ghazala, 2003. "A little at a time: the use of regularly scheduled repayments in microfinance programs," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 253-279, October.
    7. 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, February.
    8. Kumar Aniket, 2007. "Does Subsidising the Cost of Capital Help the Poorest? An Analysis of Saving Opportunities in Group Lending," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 140, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    9. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 1999. "Group lending, local information and peer selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 27-50, October.
    10. Mathias Dewatripont & Ian Jewitt & Jean Tirole, 1999. "The Economics of Career Concerns, Part II: Application to Missions and Accountability of Government Agencies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 199-217.
    11. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    12. Armendariz de Aghion, Beatriz, 1999. "On the design of a credit agreement with peer monitoring," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 79-104, October.
    13. Alexander Tedeschi, Gwendolyn, 2006. "Here today, gone tomorrow: Can dynamic incentives make microfinance more flexible?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 84-105, June.
    14. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Timothy Besley & Timothy W. Guinnane, 1994. "Thy Neighbor's Keeper: The Design of a Credit Cooperative with Theory and a Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 491-515.
    15. Beatriz Armendariz & Jonathan Morduch, 2007. "The Economics of Microfinance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262512017, April.
    16. Arvind Ashta & Marek Hudon, 2009. "To whom should we be fair? Ethical issues in Balancing Stakeholder Interests from Banco Compartamos Case Study," Working Papers CEB 09-036.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    17. Gonzalez-Vega, Claudio & Schreiner, Mark & Meyer, Richard L. & Rodriguez-Meza, Jorge & Navajas, Sergio, 1996. "Bancosol: The Challenge Of Growth For Microfinance Organizations," Economics and Sociology Occasional Papers - ESO Series 28333, Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
    18. Mark Schreiner, 2001. "Seven Aspects of Loan Size," Development and Comp Systems 0109001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Conning, Jonathan, 1999. "Outreach, sustainability and leverage in monitored and peer-monitored lending," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 51-77, October.
    20. McIntosh, Craig & Wydick, Bruce, 2005. "Competition and microfinance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 271-298, December.
    21. Copestake, James, 2007. "Mainstreaming Microfinance: Social Performance Management or Mission Drift?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1721-1738, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Emilios Galariotis & Christophe Villa & Nurmukhammad Yusupov, 2011. "Recent Advances in Lending to the Poor with Asymmetric Information," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(9), pages 1371-1390, July.
    2. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos, 2019. "20 years of research in microfinance: An information management approach," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 183-197.
    3. Xavier Giné & Pamela Jakiela & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Morduch, 2010. "Microfinance Games," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 60-95, July.
    4. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Chowdhury, Prabal Roy & Sengupta, Kunal, 2014. "Sequential lending with dynamic joint liability in micro-finance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 167-180.
    5. Kugler, Maurice & Oppes, Rossella, 2005. "Collateral and risk sharing in group lending: evidence from an urban microcredit program," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 504, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    6. B. Mak Arvin & Byron Lew (ed.), 2015. "Handbook on the Economics of Foreign Aid," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15762.
    7. Shyamal Chowdhury & Prabal Roy Chowdhury & Kunal Sengupta, 2014. "Sequential lending with dynamic joint liability in micro-finance," Discussion Papers 14-07, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    8. Abdul Karim, Zulkefly, 2009. "Microfinance and Mechanism Design: The Role of Joint Liability and Cross-Reporting," MPRA Paper 23934, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 12 Jan 2010.
    9. Kugler, Maurice & Oppes, Rossella, 2005. "Collateral and risk sharing in group lending: evidence from an urban microcredit program," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0504, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    10. Bahar Rezaei & Sriram Dasu & Reza Ahmadi, 2017. "Optimal Group Size in Joint Liability Contracts," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 204-225, September.
    11. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Menicucci, Domenico, 2011. "When is the optimal lending contract in microfinance state non-contingent?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 720-731, June.
    12. Li Gan & Manuel A. Hernandez & Yanyan Liu, 2018. "Group Lending With Heterogeneous Types," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 895-913, April.
    13. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    14. Hisaki KONO & Kazushi TAKAHASHI, 2010. "Microfinance Revolution: Its Effects, Innovations, And Challenges," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 48(1), pages 15-73, March.
    15. Allen, Treb, 2016. "Optimal (partial) group liability in microfinance lending," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 201-216.
    16. Bhole, Bharat & Ogden, Sean, 2010. "Group lending and individual lending with strategic default," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 348-363, March.
    17. Selay Sahan & Euan Phimister, 2023. "Repayment performance of joint‐liability microcredits: Metropolitan evidence on social capital and group names," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 287-311, April.
    18. Alexander Tedeschi, Gwendolyn, 2006. "Here today, gone tomorrow: Can dynamic incentives make microfinance more flexible?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 84-105, June.
    19. Lensink, Robert & Eijkel, Remco van & Hermes, Niels, 2007. "Group lending and the role of the group leader:Theory and evidence from Eritrea," Research Report 07004, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    20. Kumar Aniket, 2007. "Does Subsidising the Cost of Capital Help the Poorest? An Analysis of Saving Opportunities in Group Lending," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 140, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    microfinance; mission drift; poverty reduction; cross-subsidization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:sol:wpaper:09-015. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 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: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cebulbe.html .

    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.