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In current debates about micro-credit, joint-liability schemes are often viewed as the only viable way to non-collateralised lending, and are thus seen as almost synonymous with micro-credit. This article reports about an alternative, non-participatory approach to micro-credit. Prompted by the apparent inability of group credit schemes to reign in lending costs, the article sets out the institutional requirements for cheap, 'mass-produced' credit. It argues that such credit can be viable if mechanisms are in place enforcing the self-selection of potential borrowers and self-motivation of existing borrowers. The analysis of a 'mass-minimalist' micro-credit institution from South Africa supports the argument., I. INTRODUCTION Micro-credit is now an accepted development policy tool and attracts attention and funding at record levels. Donors, development officials and researchers discuss the problems of uncollateralised lending - [...]

Whether child labour displaces adult labour, giving rise to unemployment, is a matter of their substitutability in production. Using a flexible form production function fitted to data on Egypt's economy, we generate Hicks elasticities of complementarity, own and cross-price elasticities, as well as simulate employment effects on adult labour as a result of changing the fixed quantity of labour in compliance with the international call to end child labour. Adult males appear to be complementary with, and adult females substitutes for child labour, although the employment effects of banning child labour are inconclusive., INTRODUCTION Child labour faces much international opposition. Substantial market activity by children has been perceived for most of this century as destructive to an individual's intellectual and physical development and [...]

Most of the literature on risk reduction associated with price and production uncertainties has been concerned with the welfare justification for, and welfare consequences of, market stabilisation. This article deals with the important problem of how to stabilise earnings in a market where prices are volatile and production is uncertain, once the welfare case for doing so had been accepted. Based on a sample of four representative commodity markets, the study found significant scope for stabilising earnings by hedging or by price stabilisation.