Thursday, April 14, 2011

Grameen Bank and the Public Good

David Bornstein, a prize-winning journalist and author who focuses on microfinance and social innovation, argues in defense of microfinance in the wake of recent attacks by the government of Bangladesh against Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank.

The defense rests largely on research conducted by economists such as Jonathan Morduch, whose book Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day* "takes a penetrating look into 300 poor families in Bangladesh, South Africa, and India, with interviews conducted every two weeks to track expenses, earnings, and cash flow at a granular level."

(*I reviewed this book last year in the Journal of South Asian Development.)

Why Women Aren’t C.E.O.s, According to Women Who Almost Were

"It’s not a pipeline problem. It’s about loneliness, competition and deeply rooted barriers." Read more in the NYT .