Helping the poor help themselves: Social enterprise and Ireland’s peculiar microfinance revolution, c. 1836–1845
研究大饥荒前十年爱尔兰微金融机构的繁荣，发现其与1838年济贫法引入后福利国家雏形的发展有关，计量分析证实了微金融与济贫法之间的联系。
In the decade before the Great Famine, Ireland experienced a boom in microfinance institutions (MFIs). Taking a social enterprise perspective, this paper analyses the institutional context for this boom. It finds evidence linking the boom in MFIs to the development, via the introduction of the poor law in 1838, of a nascent welfare state at the end of a very turbulent period in Irish history. Many contemporary writers saw microfinance as a legal means that could lessen the burden on rate payers by helping the poor help themselves. Econometric analysis at Poor Law Union level confirms the link between MFIs, an Irish solution, and the poor law, a British solution, to Ireland’s chronic poverty. The goal of the Irish solution was to address what was perceived to be the cause of poverty, a want of capital, while the British solution addressed the symptoms of poverty but not its root cause.