34th Annual Student Research Conference
Microfinance: Empowering or Impoverishing?
Dylan J. Valleroy
Prof. Charles Boughton, Faculty Mentor
Microfinance has become an ever-popular method of providing small sums of capital to assist the poor in developing countries who may not have access to funding otherwise. While microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide these small, collateral-free loans with a promise of social and economic empowerment, there are arguments that this type of financing only adds to the poverty and inequalities that the loans are meant to alleviate. A deeper dive needs to be taken into how MFIs operate, investigations of their criticisms, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of their services and alternatives in alleviating poverty in developing nations. Exploring microfinance through many multi-cultural and global perspectives will help dissect whether the means of MFIs are empowering or impovershing.
Keywords: Microfinance, Finance, Multi-cultural, Global, Poverty, Loans, MFI, Economic
Topic(s):Business Administration
Presentation Type: Asynchronous Virtual Oral Presentation
Session: 5-11
Location: https://flipgrid.com/6a0ea4e7
Time: 0:00