Does the Investment Opportunities Bias Affect the Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities of Unlisted SMEs?

Using a panel of 5,999 small and medium-sized Belgian enterprises (SMEs) over the period 2002-2008, we identify three measures of investment opportunities suitable for unlisted firms. We then estimate firm-varying investment-cash flow sensitivities (ICFS) from reduced-form investment equations that include these measures, and compare them with those derived from a model that does not control for investment opportunities. We find that all our models yield similar ICFS estimates, which are significantly related to a wide set of proxies for financing constraints. These findings suggest that the ICFS of SMEs do not simply reflect investment opportunities. The investment opportunities bias may therefore have been overstated in previous literature.Financing constraints, Firm-varying investment-cash flow sensitivities, Investment opportunities, Gross added value.

Microfinance and Financial Sector Development

This paper analyzes the relationship between performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and the development of the formal financial sector of the country in which the MFI is active. We find that MFIs reach more clients and are more profitable where access to the formal financial system is low. This finding is in line with the market-failure hypothesis: MFIs respond to a need that banks do not fulfill and flourish where the formal banking sector fails. However, we also find indications of interdependencies between MFI-performance and formal financial sector development. First, MFIs are less profitable where interest rates are higher reflecting the fact that MFIs depend upon the domestic banking system for additional funding. Secondly, MFIs are less profitable where inflation is high, suggesting that MFIs benefit from stability of the formal financial system. Overall, the results show that the macro-economic environment is crucial to fully understand MFI-performance and that outreach and accordingly impact of MFIs are contingent on financial sector development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Microfinance and Financial Sector Development

This paper analyzes the relationship between performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and the development of the formal financial sector of the country in which the MFI is active. We find that MFIs reach more clients and are more profitable where access to the formal financial system is low. This finding is in line with the market-failure hypothesis: MFIs respond to a need that banks do not fulfill and flourish where the formal banking sector fails. However, we also find indications of interdependencies between MFI-performance and formal financial sector development. First, MFIs are less profitable where interest rates are higher reflecting the fact that MFIs depend upon the domestic banking system for additional funding. Secondly, MFIs are less profitable where inflation is high, suggesting that MFIs benefit from stability of the formal financial system. Overall, the results show that the macro-economic environment is crucial to fully understand MFI-performance and that outreach and accordingly impact of MFIs are contingent on financial sector development.O16; O50; G21

Donors talk: the signaling and imprinting effects of giving to social enterprises

How should donors fund microfinance organizations and maximize social impact? Should they spread their contributions across multiple organizations or concentrate them? We address this thorny issue by separately examining how the act of giving a donation and the amount of giving affect the social performance of MFOs worldwide. Drawing on signaling theory, we hypothesize that the act of giving has a more significant impact on social performance than the actual amount donated. Moreover, we show an imprinting effect on social performance that persists even when donations dry up. That is, the improved social performance observed during subsidized periods is not reversed in subsequent unsubsidized periods. The global social impact of donor contributions diversified across many organizations may be greater than that of concentrated funding in a few