Informal Finance in Low-Income Countries

Dale W. Adams (Professor of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Ohio State University, USA)

• Preface -- Introduction -- Taking a Fresh Look at Informal Finance -- The Rope and the Box: Group Savings in The Gambia -- Informal Financial Groups in Cameroon -- Rural Finance in Somalia -- Informal Rural Finance in Niger: Lessons for Building Formal Institutions -- Informal Finance in Sri Lanka -- Informal Rural Finance in Thailand -- Informal Finance in Papua New Guinea: An Overview -- Informal Finance in the Philippines’ Footwear Industry -- Collateral Substitutes in Rural Informal Financial Markets in the Philippines -- The Kou in Japan: A Precursor of Modern Finance -- Pawnbroking and Small Loans: Cases from India and Sri Lanka -- Strengths of Informal Financial Institutions: Examples from India -- Informal Finance in Indonesia -- Evolving Forms of Informal Finance in an Indonesian Town -- Linking Formal and Informal Finance: An Indonesian Example -- The Financial Evolution of Small Businesses in Indonesia1 -- Small-Scale Enterprise Dynamics and the Evolving Role of Informal Finance -- Formal Credit for Informal Borrowers: Lessons from Informal Lenders -- Regulatory Avoidance in Informal Financial Markets -- Contract Lending to Small Farmers in the Dominican Republic -- Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Bolivia1 -- ROSCAs: State-of-the-Art Financial Intermediation -- What Have We Learned About Informal Finance in Three Decades? -- Where to From Here in Informal Finance?