Microfinance and Poverty: Questioning the Conventional Wisdom

Microfinance and Poverty probes a set of assumptions that have arisen about microfinance and poverty reduction and that have become the conventional wisdom, although they have not been proven. These assumptions are examined through a review and analysis of theoretical and applied literature on microfinance and poverty. The view of microcredit that emerges is more complicated, but the policies that grow out of this revised view may ultimately prove more effective.