Interest in access to finance has increased significantly in recent years, as growing evidence suggests that lack of access to credit prevents lower-income households and small firms from financing high return investment projects, having an adverse effect on growth and poverty alleviation. This study describes some recent innovative experiences to broaden access to credit. These experiences are consistent with an emerging new view which recognizes a limited role for the public sector in financial markets, but contends that there might be room for well-designed, restricted interventions in collaboration with the private sector to foster financial development and broaden access. The book illustrates this view with several recent experiences in Latin America. Finally, it discusses some open policy questions about the role of the public and private sectors in driving these financial innovations.

Innovative Experiences in Access to Finance: Market-friendly Roles for the Visible Hand?

Business & Money

Torre, Augusto De La

Gozzi, Juan Carlos

Schumukler, Sergio

Economics

World Bank

Until recently, students of development have put much more energy into understanding the causes and consequences of absolute poverty than of inequality. But globalization—with its new opportunities for winners and losers, and its new insecurities and competitive pressures—is changing that. Nowhere is the issue of inequality more worrying than in Latin America, the setting for many of the world's most unequal societies. This book presents a dozen ideas or "tools" meant to make life in Latin America more equitable and fair for the great majority of its people. It suggests policies and programs for making tax structures more progressive; giving small businesses a chance; protecting labor mobility and workers' rights; tackling corruption head on; and raising the levels of quality, efficiency, and equity of the education systems. Change and reform in the direction of greater fairness will require not only political leadership and technical know-how on the part of government officials and legislators, but support and input from the progressive business community, the increasingly effective and vocal civil society, and students and intellectuals.

Fair Growth: Economic Policies for Latin America's Poor and Middle-Income Majority

Birdsall, Nancy

Menezes, Rachel

History

Center for Global Development

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Books by Torre, Augusto De La