TY - JOUR
T1 - Are microfinance institutions in South-East Asia pursuing objectives of greening the environment?
AU - Mia, Md Aslam
AU - Zhang, Miao
AU - Zhang, Cheng
AU - Kim, Yoomi
N1 - Funding Information:
We are very grateful to Professor Rajah Rasiah and two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments and suggestions. We also thank Imene Tabet and Md Sohel Rana for their valuable suggestions. The first author received funding from the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies (CPDS), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Grant no: PD002-2017). Any errors that remain are our own responsibility.
Funding Information:
Centre for Poverty and Development Studies (CPDS), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya [grant number PD002-2017]. We are very grateful to Professor Rajah Rasiah and two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments and suggestions. We also thank Imene Tabet and Md Sohel Rana for their valuable suggestions. The first author received funding from the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies (CPDS), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Grant no: PD002-2017). Any errors that remain are our own responsibility.
Funding Information:
Md Aslam Mia holds a doctorate in development economics from University of Malaya. He is currently working in a research project funded by the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies, University of Malaya. His research interests include microfinance and sustainable development, market structure, productivity and efficiency of firms and urbanization.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018/4/3
Y1 - 2018/4/3
N2 - Microfinance institutions (MFIs) were initially established to alleviate extreme poverty by providing a wide array of customized financial products. However, today's MFIs’ roles have been diversified into providing not only basic financial products but also a great variety of non-financial products, such as incentives and assistance to promote environment-friendly practices in the developing countries. By using an unbalanced panel data of 274 MFIs in South-East Asia from 2000 to 2014, this study investigated MFIs’ contribution in greening the environment using the proxy of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agriculture sector. The regression results show that the main proxy variables: number of borrowers, number of loans outstanding and average loan over gross national income per capita have a negative effect on GHG emissions, and thus, creating a positive impact on greening our environment.
AB - Microfinance institutions (MFIs) were initially established to alleviate extreme poverty by providing a wide array of customized financial products. However, today's MFIs’ roles have been diversified into providing not only basic financial products but also a great variety of non-financial products, such as incentives and assistance to promote environment-friendly practices in the developing countries. By using an unbalanced panel data of 274 MFIs in South-East Asia from 2000 to 2014, this study investigated MFIs’ contribution in greening the environment using the proxy of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agriculture sector. The regression results show that the main proxy variables: number of borrowers, number of loans outstanding and average loan over gross national income per capita have a negative effect on GHG emissions, and thus, creating a positive impact on greening our environment.
KW - Greenhouse gas
KW - South-East Asia
KW - agriculture
KW - microfinance institutions
KW - sustainable development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85047301299&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13547860.2018.1442147
DO - 10.1080/13547860.2018.1442147
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85047301299
SN - 1354-7860
VL - 23
SP - 229
EP - 245
JO - Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy
JF - Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy
IS - 2
ER -