Berkley Center

In this book, Becky Yang Hsu examines the social aspects of the most intriguing element of group-lending microfinance: social collateral. She investigates the details of the social relationships among fellow borrowers and between borrowers and lenders, finding that these relationships are the key to understanding the outcomes in rural China. Hsu explains why microfinance's "articles of faith" failed to comprehend the influence of longstanding relationships and the element of morality, and how they raise doubts—not only about microfinance—but also about the larger goals of development research. The book was published by Cambridge University Press in November 2017.