Finance at the Frontier: Debt Capacity and the Role of Credit in the Private Economy

This book discusses how good loans can be made to individuals and firms at the 'frontier', which frontier is not geographic, but market based. The frontier constitutes those parts of the legitimate economy that are not usually considered creditworthy by formal financial institutions. The book suggests how lending at the frontier can be remunerative to commercial banks, development banks and other development finance agencies that retail credit and assume credit risk.

The book:

• Explores ways in which governments and development assistance agencies often attempt to help people or activities gain access to credit;
• Discusses informal finance beyond the frontier - provided by friends, family members, shopkeepers, landlords, moneylenders, and many others;
• Presents a strategy for making good loans at the frontier.

Finally, the book presents a framework for measuring the results of projects and policies that attempt to expand the frontier of formal finance. This framework includes:

• Activities of borrowers at the frontier;
• Operations of financial intermediaries;
• State of financial markets;
• Macroeconomic and microfinancial implications of projects and policies operating in or through financial markets.