Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Efficiency and sustainability in microfinance / Bernd Balkenhol -- Promise and achievements -- Efficiency in the microfinance literature -- Efficiency: The concept -- Applicability of efficiency concepts in microfinance -- Efficiency versus financial Sustainability -- Structure of the book -- Conceptual framework -- Poverty versus inequality / Amadou Diop, Isabelle Hillenkamp, Jean Michel Servet -- Introduction -- Defining and measuring poverty -- How microfinance can help reduce poverty -- Poverty reduction and financial performance -- Can microfinance reach the poor? -- The harmful side effects: Increased disparities -- Poverty reduction through microfinance: a capability perspective / Flavio Comim -- Introduction -- Who are the poor? What are the issues? -- Positive mechanisms -- Negative mechanisms -- A capability perspective -- Achieving poverty outreach, impact and sustainability: managing trade-offs in microfinance / Anton Simanowitz -- Introduction: Combining social and financial objectives -- Trade-offs -- Managing trade-offs -- Conclusions -- Smart subsidies / Jonathan Morduch -- Introduction Subsidies and microfinance -- Valuing subsidies -- "Crowding in" and "crowding out" -- Conclusions -- Empirical analysis -- Efficiency in microfinance institutions: an application of data envelopment analysis to MFIs in Peru / Yves Flickiger, Anatoli Vassiliev -- Introduction -- Previous research on MFIs' performance evaluation -- Performance analysis methodology -- Data sources and variable construction -- Efficiency analysis with the DEA model -- Conclusions -- Efficiency in financial intermediation: theory and empirical measurement / Thorsten Beck -- Introduction -- Interest spreads and credit rationing: theory -- Interest spreads and credit rationing: cross-country evidence -- Decomposing spreads -- Explaining spreads -- Conclusions and policy lessons -- Efficiency drivers and constraints: Empirical findings / Yousra Hamed -- Introduction -- Methodology -- The data -- MFI clusters -- Performance drivers and constraints -- Conclusions -- Measuring the performance of MFIs: an application of factor analysis / Giovanni Ferro Luzzii and Sylvain Weber -- Introduction -- The data -- Factor analysis: theory and practice -- Cluster analysis -- Assessing what determines performance -- Conclusions -- Selected country studies -- Contextual factors determining poverty outreach and financial performance: the case of Mali / Renata Serra, Fabrizio Botti, and Milasoa Cherel-Robson-- Introduction -- Domestic contextual factors: institutions, state and markets -- External factors: the implications of subsidy withdrawal -- Conclusion -- Contextual factors determining poverty outreach and financial performance: the case of Morocco / Said Filali Meknassi -- Introduction -- Institutional context -- Support by banks -- Subsidies -- Conclusion -- Contextual factors determining poverty outreach and financial performance: the case of Central and Eastern Europe / Jusyna Pytkovwsa -- Introduction -- Access to resources -- Financial performance -- Social performance -- Auctioning subsidies: Chile's "Access to Credit Program" / Vito Sciaraffia Merino -- Introduction -- Micro-enterprises in Chile -- Has the PAC achieved its goals? -- Conclusions -- Policy implications / Bernd Balkenhol -- Global donor support to microfinance -- Weight of subsidies in microfinance -- What prompts public policy support to MFIs? -- General effects of public policy on efficiency in microfinance at the sectoral level -- Support measures affecting the efficiency of individual MFIs -- The way forward: how to support the best of class and the others -- Annex I : GIAN survey -- Annex II. Multivariate analysis and classification: social and financial performance -- Annex III. Multivariate analysis and classification: social and financial performance and efficiency -- Bibliography -- Index.

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