Over the past three decades, the global microfinance industry has witnessed phenomenal growth in terms of the number of borrowers and the total gross loan portfolio outstanding. An application of the criminologists' perspective and Blackrs's theory of control fraud to the global microfinance industry reveals a high degree of overlap between the common characteristics of control frauds and the characteristics of the microfinance industry and suggests that the sector provides a criminogenic environment suitable to Ponzi-type dynamics, including an imperative of growth, misrepresentation of financial and operating performance, a reputation for integrity and innovativeness, concentration in unregulated markets and areas most conducive to accounting fraud, non-transparency and secrecy, dubious accounting methods, lobbying in favor of deregulation, attempts to suborn controls such as accountants, lawyers, regulators, and rating agencies, executive use of the company for personal gain, excessive risk taking at the expense of investorsrsquo; capital, warnings raised but ignored, and, finally, inevitable collapse. Regulatory interventions are needed to prevent predatory lending and over-indebtedness of poor microfinance borrowers in Latin America and elsewhere. Such regulation, while necessary to protect the poor, is not well liked by the investment community as it places microfinance institutions under local scrutiny, reduces the profitability of the sector, and limits opportunities for control fraud.
pThis note presents a summary of the academic evidence on the evolution of economic inequalities at the national level in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, especially during the twenty years since the coming into force of NAFTA. The paper compares estimates for market, gross household, and disposable incomes from a wide range of studies and sources, including the Estimated Household Income Inequality (EHII) series of the University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP)./p
pThis note presents a summary of the academic evidence on the evolution of economic inequalities at the national level in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, especially during the twenty years since the coming into force of NAFTA. The paper compares estimates for market, gross household, and disposable incomes from a wide range of studies and sources, including the Estimated Household Income Inequality (EHII) series of the University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP)./p
Over the past 30 years, the issue of economic inequality has emerged from the backwaters of economics to claim center stage in the political discourse of America and beyond — a change prompted by a troubling fact: numerous measures of income inequality, especially in the United States in the last quarter of the twentieth century, have risen sharply in recent years. Even so, many people remain confused about what, exactly, politicians and media persons mean when they discuss inequality. What does economic inequality mean? How is it measured? Why should we care? Why did inequality rise in the United States? Is rising inequality an inevitable feature of capitalism? What should we do about it?
Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know takes up these questions and more in plain and clear language, bringing to life one of the great economic and political debates of our age. Inequality expert James K. Galbraith has compiled the latest economic research on inequality and explains his findings in a way that everyone can understand. He offers a comprehensive introduction to the study of economic inequality, including its philosophical and theoretical origins, the variety of concepts in wide use, empirical measures and their advantages and disadvantages, competing modern theories of the causes and effects of rising inequality in the United States and worldwide, and a range of policy measures.