This survey article provides a brief but comprehensive overview of microfinance academic literature with emphasis on recent innovations, trends and efficiency. In particular, we focus on controversial issues of microfinance, such as commercialization, regulation, interest rate policy and the...

Regional imbalance of doctors is a serious issue in many countries. In an attempt to average the geographical distribution of doctors, the Japanese government introduced ``regional caps'' recently, restricting the total number of medical residents matched within each region. Motivated by this...

Information and communication technology (ICT) is one of the most important driving forces promoting economic growth in the economy. However, one puzzling question concerns the efficient and effective impact of ICT on educational outputs and outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to...

The present paper is an analysis of electricity on the Mexican context as an input provided by the government. The approach consists in evaluating the effect on the manufacturing sector of an improvement in efficiency on electricity production and distribution. Noteworthy, the improvement is...

The standard neoclassical growth accounting (parametric) framework serves to explain only a minor part of labour productivity growth and its cross-country differences, thus implying an important role (as yet unexplained) for the Solow Residual or the Total Factor Productivity (TFP). However, the...

The current crisis has revealed the weaknesses of the global financial in general and its banking system in particular, put forward a requirement for assessing the effectiveness and stability of the banking sectors across countries. Based on available data from 64 countries over the world, the...

(1) The basic problem in OECD countries is the tax void. (2) A tax system with an exemption is more transparant than a system with a tax credit. (3) Exemption should be at the level of the net minimum wage so that such workers can work at net = gross. (4) A tax credit is a sufficient but not a...

The work constructs projections till 2030 for health care expenditures of Italian Regional Health Care Systems. Three different schemes of financing are hypothesised, with three different levels of solidarity between Regions. Financing is always supposed to cover the entire exigency of...

In this simulation study, I compare the efficiency and finite sample bias of parameter estimators for popular income dynamic models using various forms of autocovariances. The dynamic models have a random walk or a heterogeneous growth permanent component, a persistent autoregressive component...

This paper presents the results of a first large-scale study on forms, factors, and efficiency of eco-management in Bulgarian farms with a high eco-activity. First, a brief characterisation of surveyed “eco-active” farms is made. After that, diverse (internal, private, contract, market,...