The institutional context of poverty: State fragility as a predictor of cross‐national variation in commercial microfinance lending
研究了1998-2009年间国家脆弱性如何影响商业小额信贷的跨国差异，发现脆弱国家中商业机构比非营利机构更难扩大客户群，对理解制度环境与扶贫商业的关系有参考价值。
We examine cross‐national variation in the global growth of commercial microfinance from 1998 to 2009 as a natural experiment to analyze the role of national institutions in shaping the ability of commercial enterprises to reach the global poor. Our results demonstrate that a country's level of state fragility represents an important institutional context of poverty that explains significant cross‐national variation in the commercial microfinance industry's ability to grow its client base, control costs, and attract commercial capital. Moreover, we find that commercial microfinance lenders have experienced greater difficulty than nonprofit lenders in growing their client base in more fragile state settings. Our results support the proposition that the state shapes both institutional hazards and opportunities for business‐led efforts to combat global poverty . Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.