| Peter Klein |
Jeff Tucker makes several interesting points today about Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank. As you may know, microfinance in general, and Grameen in particular, have taken several hits here at O&M.
Some issues raised by Tucker and others he cites:
- The bulk of the wildly enthusiastic literature on Grameen — Tucker calls it “an echo chamber of hurrahs” — comes from the bank itself. Even the Nobel announcement cites not a single external source.
- The idea that the poor can best escape poverty through self-employment, rather than working for wages, goes against all historical experience. Rising living standards for the poor, in all other countries and historical episodes, has come from wage increases driven by increases in labor productivity.
- The claim that the binding constraint on entrepreneurial activity in countries like Bangladesh is credit, rather than management or entrepreneurship, has become a mantra that is…
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