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We use an Ecuadorian sample to investigate if there are differences in motivations for business start-up between persons with and without disabilities. Generally, we do not document significant differences. The reason might be that we use a sample selected among customers of the microfinance bank Banco D-MIRO. Without targeted incentives, disabled microfinance customers must resemble non-disabled customers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Prior research has identified five barriers hindering disabled persons’ access to microcredit: exclusion by staff; exclusion by non-disabled members of credit groups; self-exclusion; exclusion by credit design; and exclusion by the disability itself. This study applies survey data to examine which barriers disabled persons themselves consider to be the most important in Uganda. The survey covers disabled persons with some kind of existing economic activity and is thus not representative of all disabled persons in the country. The data show that exclusion by credit design is the most relevant obstacle from the perspective of the disabled person. The study suggests that microfinance institutions (MFIs) should revise their credit products and make them more disability-friendly to reach out to more disabled customers. These disability-friendly products may also help the MFI to reach other poor and discriminated groups.

Accepted version of an article from the journal: European Financial Management. Also available from Wiley: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-036X.2009.00524.x

In countries with weak institutions, board governance becomes more important. This study uses a unique dataset from listed sub-Saharan African companies to examine the relationship between ownership composition and board compensation. It further analyses the association between board compensation and company performance. The findings indicate that board ownership and chief executive officer ownership are positively associated, whereas state ownership and concentrated ownership are negatively associated with board compensation. There is no evidence of a significant association between chairperson ownership or foreign ownership and board compensation. Finally, there is a negative but not significant relationship between board compensation and company performance. JEL Classification: G32, G34

This study uses data from the microfinance industry to analyze differences in earnings quality between for-profit and nonprofit organizations. The two sets of organizations differ with respect to both governance mechanisms and managerial incentives, and little research has been conducted to investigate how such differences affect the quality of financial reporting. Overall, we find little evidence of differences in earnings quality between our two samples in the aggregate. We do, however, observe significant differences among the types of nonprofit organizations; this finding suggests that the concept of a “nonprofit level of earnings quality” is ill defined.

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in World Development. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in World Development, 39(5), 758-772 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2010.10.008 This paper uses a global data set of 350 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in 70 countries to study the common belief that women are generally better credit risks in microfinance than men. The results confirm that a higher percentage of female clients in MFIs is associated with lower portfolio risk, fewer write-offs, and fewer provisions, all else being equal. Interaction effects reveal that, while focus on women is generally associated with enhanced repayment, this trend is stronger for nongovernmental organizations, individual-based lenders, and regulated MFIs.

This article reports from a pilot project in Uganda where the aim is to enable persons with disabilities to have access to mainstream microfinance services. Several lessons have already been learned: 1) entrepreneurs with disabilities are an untapped market opportunity for Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs); 2) to influence MFIs it is important to understand their business model and team up with key actors from the industry; 3) persons with disabilities are often misinformed about MFIs’ terms and services and don’t know how to tap these opportunities. Gradually a change in attitudes in MFIs and Disabled Peoples Organizations (DPOs) is observed. All MFIs participating in the project now report an increase in the number of clients with disabilities served. This is happening without the use of any economic incentives.