I mercati del microcredito: tendenze internazionali e caso italiano. Una rassegna

This paper focuses on microcredit, a financial tool adopted in many countries to fight financial exclusion and poverty. By employing microcredit strategies, small loans are granted to low income households who would ‘naturally’ be excluded from the formal financial system. Thus, microcredit enables low income households to create and expand microenterprises or to address temporary li- quidity budget problems. We review the main causes of credit exclusion of low income households and discuss the role of innovative micro-lending strategies that aim to limit the ‘imperfections’ of the credit markets. Then, we analyze size, targets and the various ways this instrument has been adopted in industrialized nations versus developing nations. Finally the paper provides an up-to-date overview of the microcredit sector in Europe, focusing particularly on the development of microcre- dit in Italy as a case-study.