Do Interest Rates Matter? Credit Demand in the Dhaka Slums

The advent of microfinance lending in the last two decades has been hailed as a key development in the fight against poverty. The New York Times (1997), for example, on its editorial page, has promoted microfinance as “a much-needed revolution” and “the world’s hot idea for reducing poverty,” and the United Nations General Assembly recognized the trend by marking 2005 the International Year of Microcredit. Microfinance involves new banking institutions that work in poor communities, aiming to achieve both financial viability and transformational social impacts. [ADB Institute Research Paper Series No. 69] URL: [http://www.adbi.org/files/2006.05.rp69.ir.credit.dhaka.slums.pdf]