Microfinance Beyond Group Lending

Microlending is growing in Eastern Europe, Russia and China as a flexible means of widening access to financial services, both to help alleviate poverty and to encourage private-sector activity. We describe mechanisms that allow these programmes to successfully penetrate new segments of credit markets. These features include direct monitoring, regular repayment schedules, and the use of non-refinancing threats. These mechanisms allow the programmes to generate high repayment rates from low-income borrowers without requiring collateral and without using group lending contracts that feature joint liability.     

外部监督、股权激励与股权代理成本

基于股权代理成本角度,采用2010年中国沪深两市发行A股的非金融类上市公司截面数据,并运用最小二乘法和logistic二元逻辑回归模型,研究了外部监督、股权激励与股权代理成本之间的关系。研究发现,股权代理成本高的公司更加倾向于寻求有效的外部监督,聘请高质量的会计师事务所;股权激励并不能起到完善公司内部治理机制的作用,反而会提高股权代理成本;股权激励会提高公司对外部审计质量的要求。     

对发展我国农村小额信贷的思考

金融是现代经济的核心和命脉,同样农村金融也是社会主义新农村建设的核心和命脉[1]。我国的农村小额信贷主要服务与农村地区的弱势群体即被金融机构排除在外的广大农户,虽然我国的小额信贷在现阶段取得了一定的成果,但是其可持续发展仍然存在许多因素的制约,主要有资金供需失衡,小额信贷自身的不足,缺乏有效的风险分担机制等。根据国内外小额信贷成功的事例,我国应采取拓展多元化小额信贷资金来源,加快利率市场化改革等措施来促进我国小额信贷的可持续发展。     

国外商业化小额贷款模式比较及启示

小额贷款业务在中国开展已有二十余年的历史,自开展以来为农村中低收入人群脱贫致富发挥了重要作用,已经成为农村金融市场的新兴力量。国外的发展实践呈现出由福利型小额贷款向商业化小额贷款转化的趋势。印尼的小额信贷部、孟加拉的乡村银行以及玻利维亚的阳光银行等都是国际上较为成功的商业化发展模式,通过比较分析为发展中国小额信贷提供了宝贵经验。     

Economic Analysis of Microfinance： Evidence from China

China＇s evolutionary reform brought China economy enormous progress, which also subsided the poverty phenomenon. But the present anti-poverty task is still very arduous for China today. Peasant household＇s microfinance is a kind of important tool which contributes to the poverty alleviation. The sustainable development of microfinance has become a serous problem at present. This text analyses the sustainable development of microfinance through setting up the income model of microfinance, then puts forward the way to solve.     

中国农村小额贷款组织发展对策研究——以江苏省为例

本文从可持续性发展的角度出发,以江苏省为例,深入研究了中国农村小额贷款组织。本文分析了存在的问题,特别是制约农村小额贷款组织发展的瓶颈问题,也介绍了国内外的一些成功经验,并就发展中国农村小额贷款组织提出了一系列对策建议,以求将农村小额贷款组织打造为促进中国农村金融发展和农村稳定的重要工具。     

浅议我国农村小额信贷的问题与对策

如何向农村人口提供金融服务，是农村经济发展必须要解决的问题，也一直是各国政府面临的挑战。农村小额信贷的实践和发展为解决这一问题提供了全新的思路。但我国农村小额信贷的发展目前仍处于实验探索阶段，还面临着各种各样的风险和挑战。本文分析了农村小额信贷发展过程中的问题，并结合实际提出了大力拓展农村小额信贷的建议。     

中国农村小额信贷宏观效率现状分析

中国农村小额信贷的宏观效率包括小额信贷运作对农村经济发展的作用效率和政府监管农村小额信贷市场的效率,其影响因素主要包括农村地区货币量与农村经济总量比率、农村地区货币结构比率、政府调控农村小额信贷措施的影响力、政府调控农村小额信贷效果与预期目标的偏离程度等。受农村小额信贷运作对农村经济发展的作用效率较低和政府监管农村小额信贷市场的效率较低的影响,目前中国农村小额信贷的宏观效率较低。     

Does microfinance affect income inequality?

This study addresses the question whether participation of the poor in microfinance contributes to reducing a country’s level of income inequality. Using data from 70 developing countries, we show that higher levels of microfinance participation are indeed associated with a reduction of the income gap between rich and poor people. We also show, however, that the effects of microfinance on reducing income inequality are relatively small. The results of this study add to the discussion on the impact of microfinance on poverty by showing that, although access to microfinance does seem to improve the relative income position of the poor, this improvement is modest, which is probably because the use of microfinance is generally small as compared to the size of the economy of the countries in our sample. Microfinance should, therefore, not be seen as a panacea for bringing down income inequality in a significant way.     

J.M. Clark and Institutional Economics: Remarks on the Receipt of the Veblen-Commons Award

This paper outlines the contributions of J.M. Clark to institutional economics. Clark is sometimes seen as standing between institutional and neoclassical economics, but I argue that this view is not accurate. Clark was intimately involved in the definition, promotion, and defense of institutional economics in sessions of the American Economic Association and in a variety of other forums. No other member of the institutionalist group was as much involved in the professional discussion of institutional economics as J.M. Clark. In addition, Clark made a number of key contributions to institutionalist theory in the areas of psychology and economics, the costs of decision-making, overhead costs and business-pricing behavior, the accelerator mechanism and business cycles, workable and effective competition and competition policy, and social control. These contributions, together with the graduate students he trained at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, serve to place him in the center of the institutionalist movement and not on its periphery.     

员工股权激励对中小企业创新会产生补充的促进效应吗？

高管与核心技术员工作用于创新的不同过程,同时也是股权激励计划的主要激励对象,两者股权激励的互动效应对创新的影响值得探讨。选取2009—2015年成功实施股权激励的深A上市中小板与创业板公司为研究对象,考察员工股权激励对高管股权激励在中小企业创新中的影响及其作用机制。研究结果表明：实施股权激励计划能够显著增加企业研发投入与创新产出;相较于高管,核心技术员工股权激励强度越大,企业创新数量越多、质量越高;高管股权激励降低了创新转化效率。进一步地,融资支持效应和人才激励效应是员工股权激励补充促进创新的重要机制;代理成本在高管股权激励与研发投入关系中起遮掩作用。     

Double Moral Hazard,Monitoring, and the Nature of Contracts

generalized double-sided moral-hazard model, with risk-averse parties who mutually monitor each other (to get a reasonable idea of outcome/effort). The model considers trade-off between monitoring costs and moral hazard costs, which are endogenously determined by the extent of monitoring. Using this model, we formally prove a generalized version of Coase's conjecture – that the optimal contract minimizes the agency and risk costs. We then show how varying assumptions about the feasibility or cost of monitoring of the outcome or the worker's effort lead to different contracts being optimal. The analysis is then used to explain the nature of contracts observed in practice under many different situations. We will give an explanation as to why industrial workers typically work under wage contracts, while share contracts are common in agriculture and will explain why profit sharing is more common for senior managers than for the production workers. Received September 19, 2000; revised version received October 30, 1997     

小额金融机构监管须谨防与服务低收入群体冲突

以服务低收入群体为宗旨的小额金融机构(MFI)近年来在中国发展迅速,其监管制度正在探索之中。国际经验表明,接受监管与不接受监管的两类机构在业务深度上存在显著差异。监管似乎抑制了MFI对低收入群体的服务,违背了其创立初衷。充足资本有助于MFI拓展业务深度,是监管可能带来的积极影响。此外,MFI的其他微观控制变量及所在国的宏观背景也会影响其业务深度。中国要防止简单套用传统金融机构的监管体制和方法,谨防业务出现漂移。     

Cartels and the Incentive to Cheat: Evidence from the Classroom

Several points about cartel behavior are illustrated, using the curve on an exam.     

The Risk and Incentives Trade-off in the Presence of Heterogeneous Managers

Agency theory predicts a negative relationship between risk and incentives, yet recent empirical evidence has not consistently found such a relationship. In fact, some researchers have found a positive relationship. By introducing competition for heterogeneous managers, who differ in their degrees of risk aversion, into a standard agency model, this paper demonstrates that a negative or positive relationship is theoretically possible. Which arises depends on the relative risk aversion parameters of the managers and the absolute and relative riskiness of the environments.Acknowledgement I thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments.