South Asian economic models for the Pacific? The case of microfinance

Abstract

The ‘microfinance evangelists’ tend to overlook the fact that the Grameen Bank system of microfinance is a solution to a problem that has its origins in the particular socio-cultural conditions of an Asian rice economy. While the general features of this form of village economy are found in many places throughout the world, the perspective of economic anthropology suggests that the particular socio-cultural conditions of the Pacific's root-crop based economy pose particular problems for microfinance development projects. Show more