Essays in microfinance- and social network-driven marketing at the base of the pyramid

In the past thirty years, microfinance has innovated the provision of financial services to microenterprises (businesses with five or fewer employees), growing aggressively to a USD $50 billion industry. A marketing lens gives us the empirical and theoretical foundations to understand this field, providing the tools to synthesize the ideas of social capital, microfinance, and networks into managerially important insights. I explore these concepts using a novel dataset assembled from surveys, personal networks, interviews, administrative banking data, and a randomized control trial (RCT) of microentrepreneurs in Kenya, where microenterprises are estimated to represent over 20% of the country’s total employment. Essay one builds on the relationship marketing literature’s identification of commitment as critical to maintaining successful business-to-consumer relationships. I find a positive relationship between household consumption and client commitment – however, this includes not only commitment to the firm, but also to their loan peers. This has implications for MFI client strategy, motivation to cultivate both positive client commitment towards the firm as well as social capital within the client’s intra-firm network. The second essay tackles an endogenous question: which came first, social capital or financial success? Although social capital is commonly accepted in economic development theory as a key driver of financial success, the methodological difficulty of studying its causal impact leave a gap in the literature. I use a RCT to administer a financial training, providing a channel to improve financial success. While we find that the training does significantly impact financial literacy and MFI financial measures, we do not find any moderating impact of baseline social capital on financial outcomes. This study provides a counterargument to the conventional wisdom that social capital increases efficiency of entrepreneurial information acquisition and application. These dissertation results provide an alternative view about the importance of social capital at the BoP: although social capital is a part of financial success, it doesn’t appear to have the causal impact previously theorized. Through an innovative dataset and rigorous experimental methods, this dissertation provides one of the first quantitative, network-based studies of social capital at the BoP. Implications for managers, policy makers, and researchers are discussed.Doctor of Philosoph

Green tea polyphenols ameliorate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease through upregulating AMPK activation in high fat fed Zucker fatty rats

© The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved. To investigate protective effects and molecular mechanisms of green tea polyphenols (GTP) on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in Zucker fatty (ZF) rats. METHODS Male ZF rats were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 2 wk then treated with GTP (200 mg/kg) or saline (5 mL/kg) for 8 wk, with Zucker lean rat as their control. At the end of experiment, serum and liver tissue were collected for measurement of metabolic parameters, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), inflammatory cytokines and hepatic triglyceride and liver histology. Immunoblotting was used to detect phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC), and sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1c (SREBP1c). RESULTS Genetically obese ZF rats on a HFD presented with metabolic features of hepatic pathological changes comparable to human with NAFLD. GTP intervention decreased weight gain (10.1%, P = 0.052) and significantly lowered visceral fat (31.0%, P < 0.01). Compared with ZF-controls, GTP treatment significantly reduced fasting serum insulin, glucose and lipids levels. Reduction in serum ALT and AST levels (both P < 0.01) were observed in GTP-treated ZF rats. GTP treatment also attenuated the elevated TNFα and IL-6 in the circulation. The increased hepatic TG accumulation and cytoplasmic lipid droplet were attenuated by GTP treatment, associated with significantly increased expression of AMPK-Thr172 (P < 0.05) and phosphorylated ACC and SREBP1c (both P < 0.05), indicating diminished hepatic lipogenesis and triglycerides out flux from liver in GTP treated rats. CONCLUSION The protective effects of GTP against HFD-induced NAFLD in genetically obese ZF rats are positively correlated to reduction in hepatic lipogenesis through upregulating the AMPK pathway

Formation of two-dimensional weak localization in conducting Langmuir-Blodgett films

We report the magnetotransport properties up to 7 T in the organic highly conducting Langmuir-Blodgett(LB) films formed by a molecular association of the electroactive donor molecule bis(ethylendioxy)tetrathiafulvalene (BEDO-TTF) and stearic acid CH$_3$(CH$_2$)$_{16}$COOH. We show the logarithmic decrease of dc conductivity and the negative transverse magnetoresistance at low temperature. They are interpreted in the weak localization of two-dimensional (2D) electronic system based on the homogeneous conducting layer with the molecular size thickness of BEDO-TTF. The electronic length with phase memory is given at the mesoscopic scale, which provides for the first time evidence of the 2D coherent charge transport in the conducting LB films.Comment: 5 pages, 1 Table and 5 figure

Colossal negative magnetoresistance in the complex charge density wave regime of an antiferromagnetic Dirac semimetal

Colossal magnetoresistance (MR) is a well-known phenomenon, notably observed in hole-doped ferromagnetic manganites. It remains a major research topic due to its potential in technological applications. Though topological semimetals also show large MR, its origin and nature are completely different. Here, we show that in the highly electron doped region, the Dirac semimetal CeSbTe demonstrates similar properties as the manganites. CeSb$_{0.11}$Te$_{1.90}$ hosts multiple charge density wave (CDW) modulation-vectors and has a complex magnetic phase diagram. We confirm that this compound is an antiferromagnetic Dirac semimetal. Despite having a metallic Fermi surface, the electronic transport properties are semiconductor-like and deviate from known theoretical models. An external magnetic field induces a semiconductor-metal-like transition, which results in a colossal negative MR. Moreover, signatures of the coupling between the CDW and a spin modulation are observed in resistivity. This spin modulation also produces a giant anomalous Hall response.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure

SO(5) Symmetry in t-J and Hubbard Models

Numerical and analytical results are reviewed, which support SO(5) symmetry as a concept unifying superconductivity and antiferromagnetism in the high-temperature superconductors. Exact cluster diagonalizations verify that the low-energy states of the two-dimensional t-J and Hubbard models, widely used microscopic models for the high-Tc cuprates, form SO(5) symmetry multiplets. Apart from a small standard deviation ~J/10, these multiplets become degenerate at a critical chemical potential (transition into doped system). As a consequence, the d-wave superconducting states away from half-filling are obtained from the higher spin states at half-filling through SO(5) rotations. Between one and two dimensions, using weak-coupling renormalization, a rather general ladder Hamiltonian including next-nearest-neighbor hopping can be shown to flow to an SO(5) symmetric point. Experimental tests and consequences such as the existence of a pi-Goldstone mode both in the insulator and superconductor and, in particular, the relationship between the photoemission spectra of the insulator and superconductor, are emphasized.Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, 9 postscript figures. To appear in: Festkoerperprobleme/Advances in Solid State Physic