The Significance of Social Goals in Microfinance: An Examination of Growth, Development, & Outreach
Date
2014
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Haverford College. Department of Economics
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
This paper examines mission drift in microfinance as it relates to three specific goals of microfinance institutions (MFIs). Two proxies for mission drift, average loan growth and percentage of female borrower growth, are used as dependent variables in this study, and dummy variables that define MFI social goals are used as independent variables, among others. The data, which looks at 940 MFIs over the period of 1995 to 2013, comes from the Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX). The paper uses OLS, country/year fixed effects, MFI/year fixed effects, and a split sample technique to analyze the data. Ultimately, the study finds that MFI social goals and the interaction they have with borrower growth and offices growth does not have a significant effect on average loan growth, but that borrower growth and offices growth (independent of social goals) does seem to affect percentage of female borrower growth. This means that MFIs with different social goals do not grow and develop significantly differently from one another, and that MFI social goals do not seem to be a predictor of mission drift.