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Promoted for its inclusivity, agricultural value chain (AVC) financing leverages social capital and mechanisms such as off-take agreements and forward contracts to reduce borrowing and lending costs and risks for both farmers and lending institutions. AVC financing has been defined as the flow of financial products and services to and among the various actors within the AVC to address constraints of production and distribution and fulfill the needs of those involved in the chain by reducing risk and improving efficiency. This paper investigates how farmers' involvement in AVC affects their access to credit.

The authors collected primary data from 400 crop farmers in northern Ghana through a semi-structured questionnaire and analyzed the data, using the multinomial endogenous switching regression model.

Joint participation in AVC increased the amount of formal and informal credit received by 64 and 78%, respectively, compared to nonparticipation. Similarly, participation in AVC horizontal linkage and AVC vertical linkage increased the amount of formal and informal credit received by 40 and 47% and 46 and 74%, respectively, compared to nonparticipation. Irrigation farming, extension visits, knowledge of AVC in the community, access to a storage facility and trust in contract farming significantly influenced farmers' participation in AVC.

The authors’ work offers valuable insights into how different dimensions of value chain participation can impact smallholder farmers' access to credit. This work also underscores the importance of considering both formal and informal credit sources when analyzing the outcomes of value chain participation. The findings could enable formal financial providers to identify, liaise and/or resource informal financial players such as value chain actors to supply both formal and informal credit to farmers in AVCs.

The present study aimed to provide an understanding of the roles of community-based financial service organizations (i.e. rotating savings and credit associations [ROSCAs] as institutional pillars in facilitating low-income, unbanked consumers’ access to informal financial services).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 39 low-income, unbanked consumers participating in ROSCAs in Pakistan, where only 21% of adults have a bank account and almost four out of five individuals live on a low income. The obtained data were analyzed using the thematic analysis technique.

ROSCAs’ regulatory, sociocultural and cognitive aspects facilitate low-income, unbanked consumers’ utilization of informal financial services owing to their approachability by, suitability for, and fairness to such consumers. Thus, they promote such consumers’ financial inclusion.

Low-income consumers are mostly unable to access formal financial services due to the existing supply- and demand-side impediments. Understanding ROSCAs’ institutional functioning can help formal financial service providers create more transformative financial services based on the positive institutional aspects of ROSCAs to enhance poor consumers’ financial inclusion and well-being.

The inclusion of low-income, unbanked consumers in formal banking services will help them better control their finances.

Many low-income, unbanked consumers in developing countries utilize informal financial services to meet their basic financial needs, but service researchers have rarely investigated how informal financial institutions function. The present study showed that ROSCAs, as informal institutions, meet low-income, unbanked consumers’ personal, social and financial needs in a befitting manner, which encourages such consumers to use the financial services offered by ROSCAs.

Credit is an essential element in the production process in agriculture. There are two sources from which farm households can access credit: institutional sources and non-institutional or informal sources of credit. The informal sources of credit, such as moneylenders, charge exorbitant rates of interest, which further puts a financial burden on the farmers. Hence, to increase the flow of credit from institutional sources, a policy known as the interest subvention scheme (ISS) was introduced in the year 2006. This paper aims to find the effect of the ISS on the behaviour of farm households.

The author has used difference-in-difference analysis for estimation. In the analysis, the author has taken Madhya Pradesh as the treatment state and Andhra Pradesh as the controlled state. The author has used the Village Dynamics in South Asia (VDSA) dataset of ICRISAT for analysis. The author has used data from 2009 to 2014 for the two states.

The author has found that the difference between the average interest rate of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh is significant for both pre-treatment and post-treatment periods and this gap has increased after the intervention period. The results suggest that the share of informal sector borrowings has reduced in the treatment group (Madhya Pradesh) as compared to the control group (Andhra Pradesh) in the post-treatment period.

This paper is particularly important because of the dearth of literature on the impact of this scheme in India and may shed light on the much-needed policy implications of this particular policy.

The primary objective of this study aims to intensively explore the environment of Indonesian regulations and laws related to the Islamic banking system and micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSME) and unveil the restrictive laws and regulatory flaws that potentially hinder the Islamic banking institution and MSME industry in achieving financial inclusion and promoting sustainable growth.

This paper implements a qualitative method by implementing a multi-case study research strategy, both from the Islamic banking institutions and the MSME industries. The data were gathered primarily through an interview approach by adopting purposive uncontrolled quota sampling.

The findings of this paper reveal two essential issues: First, the regulatory imbalances and restrictions could demotivate and hinder the efforts of Islamic banks in providing access to finance for the MSME segment, hence, encumbering the achievement of the financial inclusion agenda from the Islamic banking industry. Second, the flaws in MSME registration and taxation might discourage the formal MSMEs from extending their business license and prevent the informal MSME units from registering their business. This issue would potentially lower their chance of accessing external financing from the formal financial institutions and participating in supportive government programmes due to the absence of proper legality.

Since this paper only observed six Islamic banks and 22 MSME units in urban and rural locations in Indonesia using a case study approach, the empirical findings and case discussions were limited to those respective Islamic banks and MSME participants.

By referring to the recommendations as presented in this paper, two critical policy implications could be expected from adopting the proposed recommendations, among others: By addressing the issues of the regulatory imbalance associated with the Islamic banking industry and introduce the deregulatory policies on profit and loss sharing (PLS) scheme implementation, this approach will motivate the Islamic banking industry in serving the MSME sector better and provide greater access to financial services, particularly in using the PLS financing schemes. By resolving the problems on MSME registration and taxation, this strategy will enhance the sustainability of the formal MSMEs’ operation and encourage the informal ones to register, hence, improving their inclusion into the formal financing services and government assistance programmes.

The present study attempts to address the literature shortcomings and helps to fill the gaps – both theoretical and empirical – by incorporating the multi-case study among Indonesian Islamic banks and MSMEs to extensively explore the Indonesia regulatory environment pertaining to the Islamic banking system (supply-side) and MSMEs (demand-side), and thoroughly investigates and reveals the restrictive laws and regulatory flaws that could potentially hinder the Islamic banking institutions and MSME industries in attaining financial inclusion and contributing to sustainable development.

This paper aims to examine the level of economic efficiency and factors that influence economic efficiency among seed potato producers in South-western Uganda.

The paper analyses the economic efficiency of 499 informal and 137 formal seed producers using primary data collected through a structured questionnaire. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the study sites and specific farmers. A one-step estimation procedure of normalized translog cost frontier and inefficiency model was employed to determine the level of economic efficiency and the influencing factors.

The results showed that mean economic efficiencies were 91.7 and 95.2% for informal and formal seed potato producers, respectively. Furthermore, results show significant differences between formal and informal seed potato producers in economic efficiency at a one percent level. Market information access, credit access, producers' capacity and experience increase the efficiency of informal while number of potato varieties, market information access and producers' experience increase economic efficiency for formal counterparts.

Most seed potato producers, especially the informal ones do not keep comprehensive records of their production and marketing activities. This required more probing as answers depended on memory recall.

Future research could explore panel data approach involving more cropping seasons with time variant economic efficiency and individual unobservable characteristics that may influence farmers' efficiency to validate the current findings.

The paper shows that there is more potential for seed potato producers to increase their economic efficiency given the available technology. This has a direct implication on the economy through increased investment in the production and promotion of high yielding seed potato varieties to meet the growing national demand for potatoes.

The paper bridges the gap in literature on economic efficiency among seed potato producers, specifically in applying the normalized translog cost frontier approach in estimating economic efficiency in the context of potato sub-sector in Uganda.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-10-2021-0641

Traditional savings and credit associations, also known as ‘Osusu’ in Sierra Leone, are unions of individuals with common economic goals aimed at reducing poverty and economic vulnerability. The chapter examined the ecosystem of traditional indigenous savings and credit associations, their role as an emerging financial inclusion strategy, and contributions to the socio-economic transformation of business processes in the ecosystem of business operations in Sierra Leone. The chapter adopted the case study method to discuss the Tawoponneh model of ROSCAs in Sierra Leone. The institutional theory provided insight into why individuals join ROSCAs, as well as the resulting outcomes and benefits. Additionally, this chapter discusses the challenges associated with indigenous financial sustainability practices and provides actionable recommendations for joint private and government policy collaboration in supporting traditional entrepreneurial businesses.

This study aims to investigate whether gender predicts financial inclusion and whether education can fill the gender gap in financial inclusion when controlling for the effects of supply side factors of financial inclusion in low-income economies.

This study aims to investigate whether gender predicts financial inclusion and whether education can fill the gender gap in financial inclusion when controlling for the effects of supply side factors of financial inclusion in low-income economies.

The findings provided support for the gender gap in financial inclusion using the most basic measure of financial inclusion. However, using formal savings and access to credit, the gender gap hypothesis is not supported. Moreover, the results revealed that education reduces the gender gap in the basic form of financial inclusion. However, this study could not find any significant difference between men and women's financial inclusion in terms of saving at a bank or borrowing from a bank though men tend to save more than women informally.

The current study contributes to the literature by examining the role of education in the relationship between gender gap and financial inclusion when controlling for the effects of heterogeneous infrastructure and the supply side factors of financial inclusion among the selected countries.

The purpose of this study is to propose a model of competition between a formal lender (bank) and an informal lender (moneylender) with informational asymmetry between these two lenders. Further, the authors introduce capacity constraint on the lending capacity of the moneylender and assume that borrowers differ in risk and wealth.

The solution concept of Nash equilibrium has been used to derive the optimal strategies of the lenders.

The equilibrium strategies in most of the results depend on the difference between the expected returns from risky and safe projects where the risky project has higher expected returns. The credit market is segmented in terms of risk and wealth levels. Rationing of poor safe borrowers from the credit market is inevitable when the moneylender's capacity is sufficiently small, suggesting a low-income trap for them. Further, when moneylender has capacity constraint of some form, a zero-profit outcome is never a Nash equilibrium outcome.

There is a possibility of collusion between the lenders. However, the authors do not derive all possible outcomes under capacity constraint

When the informal lender has limited capacity, competition between formal and informal lenders may not alleviate credit rationing, instead aggravate the problem. Thus, the government should devise policies to ensure credit availability to resource poor households

While the literature models strategic interaction between lenders under the assumption of zero-profit (Bertrand Paradox) condition, this study shows that zero profit is not the only outcome under such a set-up. Also, in presence of capacity constraint of the moneylender, a zero-profit outcome is never a Nash equilibrium outcome for the lenders. There is an optimal contract at which the lenders differentiate in terms of repayment and collateral and earn positive profits under certain conditions.

This paper investigates constraints to yield enhancing technology adoptions, highlighting credit using data pooled from the first three waves of the Ethiopian socio-economic surveys.

Direct elicitation methodology is used to identify household's non-price credit rationing status. The panel selection model specified to examine causal effects of credit constraint on adoption variables allows us to tackle self-selection into adoptions and potential endogeneity of credit constraint while controlling for unobserved heterogeneity in both the selection and main equations.

Results show that about 54% of sample households face credit rationing, predominantly demand-side risk rationing. There is a negative association between measures of credit constraint status and adoption variables. The effect is stronger when the demand-side credit rationing is accounted for and when within household variation in credit constraint status overtime is considered as opposed to across constrained and unconstrained households.

Expanding physical access to institutional credit alone may not necessarily spur increased uptake of credit and instant investment by farm households. For a majority of them to take advantage of available credit and improved technology, interventions should also aim at minimizing downside risks.

This paper incorporates the role of downside risk in influencing farmer's decisions to uptake credits and subsequently his/her adoption behaviors. The researcher approached the topic by state-of-the-art method which allows obtaining more reliable results and hence more specific contributions to research and practice.