Rural Transformation, Inequality, and the Origins of Microfinance

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What determines the development of rural financial markets? Starting from a simple theoretical framework, we derive the factors shaping the market entry of rural microfinance institutions across time and space. We provide empirical evidence for these determinants using the expansion of credit cooperatives in the 236 eastern counties of Prussia between 1852 and 1913. This setting is attractive as it provides a free market benchmark scenario without public ownership, subsidization, or direct regulatory intervention. Furthermore, we exploit features of our historical set-up to identify causal effects. The results show that declining agricultural staple prices, as a feature of structural transformation, leads to the emergence of credit cooperatives. Similarly, declining bank lending rates contribute to their rise. Low asset sizes and land inequality inhibit the regional spread of cooperatives, while ethnic heterogeneity has ambiguous effects. We also offer empirical evidence suggesting that credit cooperatives accelerated rural transformation by diversifying farm outputs.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 7990

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages ; Economic History: Financial Markets and Institutions: Europe: Pre-1913 ; Economic Development: Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance ; Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
• Subject: microfinance ; credit cooperatives ; rural transformation ; land inequality ; Prussia

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Suesse, Marvin ; Wolf, Nikolaus
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/214992
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET