Sociology 1005 – Spring 2009

Microcredit and microlending

Since we talked about this a little in class, I wanted to give you all a few links to articles and websites on the topic.

Wikipedia gives a good overview in its article on microcredit, but it’s long and a little dry.

Kiva.org is one of the institutions that is helping to connect people who would like to lend money to people who need to borrow it.

A friend of mine just wrote in her own blog about her Kiva loans; she mentions that the default rate is below 3%.

This article mentions the idea that microlending might take off in the United States. It sounds strange, but a few years ago, no one would have thought that Craigslist would replace classified ads in newspapers!