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Can Impact Investing Avoid the Failures of Microfinance?

Harvard Business Review

Morgan projected up to $1T in investment would be deployed this decade — which would make impact investing twice the size of official development aid to the world’s less develop countries (as defined by the United Nations) , presuming historic levels of aid stayed constant since 2010. Lessons from Microfinance.

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Making Microfinance More Effective

Harvard Business Review

A major challenge for international development efforts is determining which financial tools provide durable buffers against such setbacks. The Grameen model of microfinance gained a great deal of attention in the international development field after early data showed that it was associated with high repayment and low default.

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Global Entrepreneurs Need New Funding Models

Harvard Business Review

In low-income countries, according to World Bank data in a recent paper by the consultancy Dalberg, 43% of businesses with between 20 and 99 employees say that access to finance is a major constraint. The White House has called this gap between the demand and supply of finance for small and medium enterprises a "market failure.[and]

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Entrepreneurship Needs to Be a Bigger Part of U.S. Foreign Aid

Harvard Business Review

My research into entrepreneurship’s role in job creation, my professional life as an entrepreneur and investor, and my experience as a one-time government official have led me to one conclusion: Entrepreneurship can solve big problems, but our government has not adequately leveraged this American-as-apple-pie tool in its foreign policy.

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Using Games to Get a Handle on Bank Risk

Harvard Business Review

Yet unlike in finance, where distributing risk across institutions is the goal, in drug development the focus is on isolating risk. Although new drugs are developed for those with a particular disease, they are tested in a healthy population before they are distributed and assessed in a vulnerable one.

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Making Sense of the Many Kinds of Impact Investing

Harvard Business Review

Currently, impact can mean anything from venture investments in new health technologies to microfinance loans in Peru; from affordable housing in the US to renewable energy in India; from social impact bonds to private equity funds that create jobs. Ultimately, asset managers can develop a matrix with financial asset classes (e.g.,

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