Microcredits: a profitable concept for poverty reduction?

We would like to thank Jan Mooren for his active support for this article.

Today we can buy almost anything on credit: Bicycles, cars, houses. We even borrow the tuition fees. But not everyone has so much leeway. Especially people in emerging countries with low incomes often have no access to credit. Microloans are one possible solution. They are designed to help people help themselves and have been an important instrument of development work in recent decades.   In today's edition of Economic Situation and Strategy, you can find out what microloans are all about in detail, what return and risk characteristics microloan funds typically have and whether microloans actually fight poverty.