‘Freedom from Poverty is Not for Free’: Rural Development and the Microfinance Crisis in Andhra Pradesh,India

Within neoliberal development discourse, the poor are represented as entrepreneurial subjects for whom integration into formalized financial systems can facilitate their escape from poverty. This paper examines how the 2010 microfinance crisis in Andhra Pradesh reveals significant fault lines that underlie this narrative. It argues that the crisis of microfinance in Andhra Pradesh needs to be placed within the context of severe agrarian dislocations stemming from the impact of trade liberalization, drought cycles and a transformation of rural social relations. The contradictions are most strikingly represented in increasing rural differentiation and a generalized crisis of social reproduction among land‐poor farmers and landless labourers. A massive influx of microfinance – driven by both state‐operated programmes and private‐sector institutions leveraged with cross‐border financial flows – found a ready clientele among various agrarian classes seeking to bolster consumption and roll over debt in conditions of significant uncertainty and distress. Yet in banking on this vulnerability, microfinance institutions socialized the contradictions of rural Andhra Pradesh and have ultimately been thrown into limbo through the unleashing of political and social forces unforeseen in neoliberal narratives of agrarian change.     

Bank Earnings Management and Tail Risk during the Financial Crisis

We show that a pattern of earnings management in bank financial statements has little bearing on downside risk during quiet periods, but seems to have a big impact during a financial crisis. Banks demonstrating more aggressive earnings management prior to 2007 exhibit substantially higher stock market risk once the financial crisis begins as measured by the incidence of large weekly stock price “crashes” as well as by the pattern of full‐year returns. Stock price crashes also predict future deterioration in operating performance. Bank regulators may therefore interpret them as early warning signs of impending problems.     

Diverging Patterns: Labor in the Pacific Northwest Wood Products Industry

In 1986 workers in the Pacific Northwest United States accepted wage concessions while their Canadian counterparts prevailed after a lengthy strike. This study examines the forces behind the divergence in bargaining trends between American and Canadian wood products workers. It finds that while structural and cyclical economic changes in the industry were similar in both countries, there were crucial institutional and environmental differences. These enhanced the bargaining power of the Canadian membership of the International Woodworkers of America compared to that of IWA Region 3 in Oregon and Washington.     

The Bank Capital Decision: A Time Series—Cross Section Analysis

This paper seeks to explain the dramatic decline in capital to asset ratios in U.S. commercial banks during the last two decades. It is hypothesized that the rise in nominal interest rates during this period might have contributed substantially to the fall in capital ratios. Time series-cross section estimation supports the hypothesis regarding the interest rate.