Social Entrepreneurship – Microcredit as an instrument of Economic and Social Inclusion
SERAFIM NOGUEIRA1,2, FÁBIO DUARTE2, ANA BORGES2
1 Mestrado em MÉTODOS DE APOIO À DECISÃO EMPRESARIAL
2 CIICESI, ESTG /P.PORTO – Centro de Inovação e Investigação em Ciências Empresariais e Sistemas de
Informação, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão / Politécnico do Porto
emails: 8140418@estg.ipp.pt, fdd@estg.ipp.pt, aib@estg.ipp.pt
Abstract
The existing literature on microcredit programs focused mainly explaining its influence in developing countries. To fight this academic community gap, this work examine the link between the application of microcredit programs and the financial inclusion growth in Portuguese microcredit context, providing highlights about the impacts of microcredit programs on borrower's. Another goal of this paper is to analyse if in industrialized economies will be enough the self-employment promotion, or entrepreneurship should be the way. Finally, an analyse between regions is important to evaluate and implementing targeted policy responses.
Keywords: Microcredit, Social and Financial Inclusion, Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment, Economic Development.
1 Introduction
The eradication of poverty and social exclusion, concept used in many parts of the world to characterise modern forms of social disadvantage, remains one of the key global challenges. A significant part of the world's population still live in poverty or in social exclusion, principally because do not have access to financial resources (Chen and Ravallion, 2007). According to the most recent World Bank estimates, in 2015, 10 percent of the world's population lived on less than $ 1.90 a day. The World Bank’s work focused in to eliminate the extreme poverty by year 2030 (World Bank, 2016). This extreme poverty is a reality mainly found in emerging economies, where development is lower (especially the tertiary sector). However, in developed countries still exist some individuals which are in a situation of poverty or social exclusion. According Eurostat, 2016 , around 25.1 percent of Portuguese population was at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
For United Nations (UN), 2015, poverty alleviation (extreme poverty in undeveloped countries or disadvantaged groups in industrialized countries) is one of the most important of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
The literature presents the concepts describes (poverty or social exclusion) as directly linked to the ability/opportunity of people to have access to financial resources (Stiglitz, 1990; Yunus, 1998). Without access to this resources, poor people face many difficulties to initiate, maintain and expand economic activities capable to generate added value.
To supreme this gap, the microcredit programs appears. Microcredit have emerged as an effective tool to poverty alleviation and increase social inclusion. According Bhatt et al., 1999, microcredit programs provide a small amount of financial capital to certain target groups. The main goal of this program is effectively poverty alleviation, but at the same time, contribute to local development, being a device capable of providing services to enable the construction of a society with better levels of quality life.
This research aims to assess the impact of microcredit programs on the population quality life. The first objective is linked to the capacity of microcredit to generate sustainable development – Microcredit: Entrepreneurship or Self-employment? The literature is consensual about the positive impact of microcredit on self-employment. Many studies applied in undeveloped countries reveal a strong impact of microcredit programs on self-employment generation. However, in developed economies self-employment is not enough to promote sustainable development. Some authors defend that self-employment do not produce sustainable development, but only temporary effects (Millán et al., 2010). A criticism pointed to self-employment is the capacity to create added value. Most people that become self-employed are not entrepreneurs in the sense of people creating business that generate innovative and added value businesses (Baumol, 2008; Shane, 2009).
The second goal is to find a relationship between microcredit programs and financial and social inclusion. It is important to verify that microcredit programs have a significant impact on the financial and social inclusion of the population.
According Sahay et al., 2015, financial inclusion can be identified as the access to and use of financial services by households and firms. The literature is consensual that financial inclusion has potential to create benefits for communities. The support financial inclusion can increase business investments and contribute to sustainable economic growth (Demirguc-Kunt et al., 2017). In this sense, various governments have implemented policies to increase the financial inclusion. For the European Union (EU) this topic is important on the political agenda being one of the objectives of the 2020 strategy.
The third aim is focused at regional strategy. Can microcredit programs contribute to the reduction of asymmetries between urban and rural areas? The existent literature has been studying the social inclusion performance at the national level. Several studies evaluate the social inclusion level on European Union member states and employed this approach (e.g. Cherchye et al., 2004; Rogge, 2017; Giambona and Vassallo, 2014; Rogge and Konttinen, 2017). However, this knowledge should be complemented with more specific analysis at regional level (Longford et al., 2010). The analysis of the socio-economic factors differences between regions can provide highlights to determine where microcredit programs have the greatest impact.
This study intends to contribute to the literature in several aspects. Firstly, the empirical literature mainly study the institutional system of the microcredit programs and its financial performance (e.g. Cassar et al., 2007; Haq et al., 2010; Hermes and Lensink, 2007). This paper fills this gap and provides an evaluation the microcredit impacts in the beneficiaries.
Secondly, the high success of microcredit programs in developing countries prompted developed countries to replicate them. However, the transposition the methods/solutions from developing countries to developed countries is invalid (high differences of realities). In this sense, this work can contribute to the research literature analysing the Portuguese context.
2 Conceptual Framework
In the last years, microfinance services (predominantly microcredit programs) has received increasing attention from both policy makers and academics (Garcia-Pérez et al., 2017). This attention and its role to poverty alleviation increased mainly when Mohammad Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 (Norwegian Nobel Committee, 2006) and it gave force to increase microfinance services in economies that differ substantially from your initial application (see Bhatt and Tang, 2001; Bruhn-Leon et al., 2012).
The scientific community has been studying the microfinance sector in a number of fields, trying to understand if and how it can contribute to the development economics (Khandker, 2005; Morduch, 1999), to entrepreneurial activity (Bradley et al., 2012; Bruton et al., 2011, 2013; Kent and Dacin, 2013; Mair and Marti, 2009; Chliova et al., 2015) or to poverty alleviation (Field et al., 2013; Khavul et al., 2009; Milanov et al., 2015).
However, the literature on microfinance in European context is scarce, mainly because the industry is relatively young , especially in the entrepreneurship domain. According to Eurostat in 2015 the overwhelming majority (92.8%) of enterprises active within the European Union 28's non-financial business economy were micro enterprises (employing less than 10 persons). In 2014, the micro enterprises employed more people than any other enterprise size class, representing a high importance for unemployment reduction and value-added creation. The principle problem faced for this small business are the financial constraints, where microfinance can represent an important instrument.
Microfinance is characterized by the microscale of services provided, where the microcredit programs are the major service. Generically, these are defined as small loans to low income people who had access to formal financing. The impossibility of providing guarantees and/or the inexistence of credit history are the principle reasons for microcredit actuation. Microcredit has allowed many of the poorest people to develop small businesses and helped to promote economic development in such regions of the world.
It is essential develop studies in this area (entrepreneurship origins) to provide appropriate services by microfinance industry (Duflo, 2010), providing recommendations to policy makers to define the better policies, to develop the entrepreneurial activity with value-added and to stimulate the connections between rural and urban areas to achieve national cohesion.
2.1 MICROCREDIT: Entrepreneurship or Self-employment?
The origin of microcredit programs goes back to developing countries, where it success has highly recognized. In this reality, the programs serve principally individuals in temporary economic difficulties due to unemployment, providing a small loan to excluded population (Carboni et al., 2010). On the other hand, in economies more developed, the main goal of the microcredit programs is not to attack extreme poverty, but to promote the transition from unemployment to self-employment (Bilau and St-Pierre, 2018). This paradigm change is extremely important in promoting financial and social inclusion, as way to increase the sustainable economic growth in developed countries.
The high concentration of studies in this area growth the expectation and try to find better results. So, a question arises: In developed countries will be enough the promotion of self-employment or the focus should be the entrepreneurial activity? Recent literature has coming to develop answers with contradictory conclusions. Many scholars cast doubts on the capacity of microcredit programs generate sustainable entrepreneurship (Field et al., 2013; Karlan and Zinman, 2012; Millán et al., 2010). For example, Millán et al., 2010 consider the self-employment only produce temporary effects. Oppositely, the entrepreneurial promotion policies are aimed at not only reduce unemployment (by transition for self-employment), but also promoting the sustainable economic growth (Millán et al., 2010; Wennekers and Thurik, 1999). In the USA, for example, the microcredit programs are mainly applied to sustain micro-small business (Bhatt and Tang, 2002; Schreiner and Woller, 2003). Various studies find a positively correlation between the level of entrepreneurship and economic growth (Reynolds et al., 2005; Audretsch and Thurik, 2001).
Many studies investigate the determinants of self-employment (De Wit, 2012; Evans and Leighton, 1989; Joona, 2010; Leoni and Falk, 2010; Rees and Shah, 1986; Cueto and Mato, 2006; Georgellis et al., 2007) or unemployment (Baccaro and Rei, 2007; Lee, 2014), but few analyse the reason why some self-employed that become on entrepreneurship. Is important understand why, after having obtained self-employment, some individuals create value-added (e.g. create new employment and consequently increase economic growth), while others not. Know and understand the entrepreneurial motivations are vital to promote sustainable entrepreneurship.
In this direction, since 2001, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) addresses entrepreneurship according to motivations of entrepreneur: necessity driven entrepreneurship or opportunity driven entrepreneurship. Research in this area use a great variety of terms to label to this motivation ((e.g. pull and push entrepreneurship (Amit and Muller, 1995) or necessity and opportunity (Block and Wagner, 2007; Hessels et al., 2008; Reynolds et al., 2002).
The entrepreneurial activity by necessity, or also called a "refugee" effect (Thurik et al., 2008), represents traditionally reactive people that lose their jobs and with little prospect of finding a new job (Amit and Muller, 1995; Bergmann and Sternberg, 2007). On the other side, the "real" entrepreneurs are defined those who start a business activity, to take advantage of new opportunities (Kirkwood, 2009), for more independence or self-fulfilment (Taylor, 1996; Dalborg and Wincent, 2015). Generally, these entrepreneurs are more likely to survive and to have succeed (Amit and Muller, 1995; Caliendo and Kritikos, 2010).
In the developed countries, the entrepreneurial activity is mainly characterized by opportunities entrepreneurs (Reynolds et al., 2005).
The existent literature uses different measurements to evaluate the entrepreneurial motivations, such as the individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender, educational level, previous experience or preceding employment status), sector activity or geographical area (rural or urban). Findings on studies in this area reveal a mixed result. Belda and Cabrer-Borrás (2018) analyse the determinants of survival in Spanish entrepreneurship. They found that opportunity entrepreneurs are more likely to survival business. Variables as nationality, children existence, age, previous experience work or education had a significant impact on model estimated. Bourlès and Cozarenco (2017) examines the relationship between the entrepreneurial motivation and business performance in a French microfinance context. Your results showed that necessity entrepreneurs are more likely to have difficulty on repayment their loan than by opportunity. However, entrepreneur motivations not influenced business survival. For Jayawarna et al. (2013), the entrepreneur motivations develop dynamically in relation to career, household and business life courses. This can be an explanation for Bourlès and Cozarenco (2017) conclusion.
Glavin and Van Der Maas (2018) on entitled study the "Precarious Versus Entrepreneurial Origins of the Recently Self-Employed: Work and Family Determinants of Canadians’ Self-Employment Transitions", present an interesting point of view. For the authors, is important that more studies investigate whether contemporary self-employment trends reflect growing labour market opportunity or problems in the adequacy of wage work.
2.2 Social and Financial Inclusion: Microcredit have Impact?
The poverty definition is not clear and continue to generate diverse opinions, but the term is commonly associated to emerging economies. According to Yunus, the "poverty is caused by our inadequate understanding of human capabilities and by our failure to create enabling theoretical frameworks, concepts, institutions and policies to support those capabilities" (Yunus, 1998, p.48). More recently and in another context (in developed countries) a new notion exists to characterize this concept – the social exclusion. Reduce significantly the poverty and the social exclusion population are one main goal for the EU to 2020 strategy. With a great part of population relying on limited financial resources and that are often expensive (Coolins et al., 2009), the lack of access to financial resources is presented by literature as the major contributor to the persistence of poverty or social exclusion (Chen and Ravallion, 2007). This is one of the microfinance purposes – reach social objectives through the provision of financial resources (Fila, 2018).
There are a great number of studies that presents different definitions to concept of financial inclusion. However, the view that it represents the access to financial services by households and firms (Sahay et al. (2015), is widely accepted in the literature. Generically, financial inclusion can be described as the availability of credit and other financial services at an affordable cost to the disadvantaged population section (Kochhar et al., 2009). According to Aguera (2015), the access to financial services can boost job creation (self-employment or new small business creation), reduce vulnerability to shocks and increase investments in human capital. Individuals and firms have limited financial resources and without the financial support they can't pursue promising growth opportunities. For World Bank (2018), "financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a responsible and sustainable way".
The wide existent literature recognizes the great importance of financial inclusion for policymakers in umpteen countries. Microfinance services appears to promotion this inclusion and are currently seen as a powerful antipoverty policy tool (improving household income) and a way to reach sustainable economic development (Sahay et al., 2015). In addition, microfinance services can play an important role on fight against social benefits dependency.
The studies in this area has been exponentially increasing, but its principally critique is the lack of proven impact or the mixed results. Some studies shown positive effect on business, households and on community (Woller 2002; Pitt et al. 2006), while others not found any relationship or mixed conclusions. Microfinance literature focused principally in the microfinance institutions and its performance. The paper of Banerjee et al. in 2015 present six randomized evaluations of microcredit. The authors find "modestly positive, but not transformative, effects" of microcredit as a development tool. The literature is not clear about the impacts of microcredit programs on borrower's (e.g. household income or welfare benefits). The study of Al-Shami et al., (2015) shows that Malaysian microfinance institution has a significant impact on the women livelihood improvement regarding to household income.
The measurements in this field is not easy. According to Chliova et al. (2015), "a common challenge in MC research is the precise measurement of outcomes of interest in the largely developing and informal contexts where MC is deployed, because official records and clear boundaries between the individual, the household and the microenterprise are lacking". In an evaluation of borrower context, the financial well-being of the clients, health of clients or empowerment of female clients are possible metric to be used (Chliova et al, 2015) on socio-economic indicators. For the financial inclusion measurement Sinclair (2013) refers that is important study the access to banking and to credit, but this metric has received some critics. Recent studies in this area, have create a financial inclusion index based on some identified dimensions. According to Financial Inclusion Data Working Group of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (2012), there are three dimensions of financial inclusion to be considered: access, quality and usage of financial services.
2.3 Contribution for Regional Strategy
The national strategy is largely discussed and studied for the literature. However, it is important to look for regional-level policies, even in developed countries. According the studies of Atkinson (2002) and Atkinson et al. (2004) the desegregation of social inclusion performance indicators from national to regional-level is essential to evaluate and implementing targeted policy responses. This change of approach is essential to reduce regional asymmetries (Carlucci et al., 2017) and promote sustainable development of all territory.
In promotion this objective, the microcredit programs can play an important role. While instrument of financing to small business or to self-employment, microcredit represent especial importance to counter this phenomenon.
Similarly, to many European countries, rural areas in Portugal, due to the scarcity jobs, tend to be areas of concentration of poverty, with a high probability of social exclusion.
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