Alleviating poverty or reinforcing inequality? Interpreting micro-finance in practice, with illustrations from rural China.
Academic and political discussions about micro-finance have been found lacking in predictive power, because they are based on orthodox economic theory, which does not properly comprehend the social components of credit. I take a better approach, utilizing credit theory--specifically, Ingham's explication of how the nature of money as credit leads to social inequality. I also expound the perspective that morality is not separate from considerations borrowers make in micro-finance programmes on the micro level. I draw upon illustrations from my fieldwork in rural China, where a group-lending micro-finance programme was administered as part of a larger government-initiated effort across the country.
Department of Sociology, Georgetown University.
Becky Yang
BY
Hsu
D002681:China; D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D035082:Federal Government; D005376:Financial Management / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D009111:Local Government; D009014:Morals; D011203:Poverty; D012424:Rural Population; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D012961:Sociology
China; Micro-finance; inequality; micro-credit; money; sanction