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The banking system in developing countries is much less developed than in other parts of the world; hence it is more common for households to borrow money through informal channels. Informal loans are characterised by social collateral rather than physical collateral. The literature shows that social networks and social trust are important components of social collateral. While many studies show empirical evidence of an association between social networks and informal borrowing, there is a lack of empirical evidence of the way in which social networks and social trust play as social collaterals. This paper uses a longitudinal dataset to examine the role of generalised trust and social networks, under organisational networking resources, in informal loans among rural households in twelve provinces across Vietnam. Empirical results show that community social networks impose a positive effect on obtaining informal loans and on repayment performance, while generalised trust is associated with the probability of falling into arrears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines the relative importance of local institutions and external finance on small business investment. Utilising the institutional theory, we argue that local institutions and external finance have heterogeneous effects on firm investment. More importantly, they may interact and moderate each other. Analysing a set of 1.3 million observations of small businesses operating in Vietnam (2006–2016) obtained from the Annual Enterprise Survey data from the Vietnam Statistics Office, we find that local institutional settings and external finance are important determinants of firm investment. Moreover, local institutions are able to moderate the effects of external finance on firm investment. As such, this study asserts that conventional models cannot discern whether institutions or external finance are more important to firm investment. Rather, the relative importance of institutions and external finance should be investigated from the perspective of their interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since the early 1980s, many governments have investigated the possibility of utilising access to microloans as a pathway to grow economies out of unemployment and thereby improve people’s quality of life. Studies that have previously investigated the impact of microloans found a positive effect on quality of life. Unfortunately, these mainly measure quality of life using monetary (income) measures rather than assessing the entire multidimensionality of quality of life. Aim: This article investigates the relationship between objective multidimensional income-independent quality of life (IIQoL) and having access to micro- and informal loans (M&ILs). Specifically, we focus on South Africa’s most marginalised – ‘poor females’ and ‘poor females residing in rural areas’ – as their empowerment is a critical social objective aligned to that of international agencies. Setting: This study investigates the relationship between IIQoL and access to M&ILs in South Africa. Methods: We use a panel data set spanning four waves from 2008 to 2015 of the National Income Dynamics Survey. Principal component analysis is used to construct the IIQoL index and various panel and survey estimation techniques are applied in the regression analyses. Results: M&ILs are significant and negatively related to IIQoL for both ‘poor females’ and ‘poor females residing in rural areas’. This implies that those with loans failed to translate those monetary gains into higher levels of IIQoL over time. Conclusion: Access to M&ILs is not succeeding in raising the quality of life of South Africa’s most marginalised groups. Without intervention and education programmes imbedded within microloan initiatives, the marginalised will not experience an increase in their non-income quality of life.

Copyright of Revista Espacios is the property of Talleres de Impresos Oma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Since the early 1980s, many governments have investigated the possibility of utilising access to microloans as a pathway to grow economies out of unemployment and thereby improve people's quality of life. Studies that have previously investigated the impact of microloans found a positive effect on quality of life. Unfortunately, these mainly measure quality of life using monetary (income) measures rather than assessing the entire multidimensionality of quality of life. Aim: This article investigates the relationship between objective multidimensional income-independent quality of life (IIQoL) and having access to micro- and informal loans (M&ILs). Specifically, we focus on South Africa's most marginalised – 'poor females' and 'poor females residing in rural areas' – as their empowerment is a critical social objective aligned to that of international agencies. Setting: This study investigates the relationship between IIQoL and access to M&ILs in South Africa. Methods: We use a panel data set spanning four waves from 2008 to 2015 of the National Income Dynamics Survey. Principal component analysis is used to construct the IIQoL index and various panel and survey estimation techniques are applied in the regression analyses. Results: M&ILs are significant and negatively related to IIQoL for both 'poor females' and 'poor females residing in rural areas'. This implies that those with loans failed to translate those monetary gains into higher levels of IIQoL over time. Conclusion: Access to M&ILs is not succeeding in raising the quality of life of South Africa's most marginalised groups. Without intervention and education programmes imbedded within microloan initiatives, the marginalised will not experience an increase in their non-income quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the 2008 crisis, the Russian consumer loan market shows high growth rates, accompanied by the quality deteriorating even faster. At the same time, a great proportion of households are not attracted by the banks and borrow informally. In this paper, we aim to learn why households refuse to become bank clients, using the data from a 2009-2010 national survey of Russian households. Our results suggest that household's choice of the informal credit market is based not only on credit rationing, but also on a lack of financial literacy, credit discipline and trust in the banking sector as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objectives of the study is to analyze the share of informal loan in total borrowing, and the role of informal financial sector in promoting of economic activity in Pakistan. The study is based on primary data; a questionnaire was designed to collect the data from District Peshawar. It was observed that, 83 percent were informal and only 17 percent were formal borrowers. Fifty eight percent of borrowers receiving loan from informal lenders, lived in urban, 33 percent from those lenders working and/or living abroad and 9 percent from rural lenders. Households received more than 90 percent of loan in the form of cash and 2.9 percent in kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]