"Microcredit in Pre-Famine Ireland"
BY: AIDAN HOLLIS
University of Calgary, Canada
ARTHUR SWEETMAN
University of Victoria, Canada
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Date: April 1997
Contact: Aidan Hollis
E-Mail: MAILTO:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Postal: Dept. of Economics, 2500 University Dr., NW
Calgary AB, T2N 1N4, Canada
Phone: (403) 220-5861
Fax: (403) 220-5262
Co-Auth: MAILTO:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ERN Ref: HISTORY:WPS97-114
Hundreds of independent, local, quasi-charitable microcredit
societies, or "loan funds," were lending to as many as 20%
of Irish households in the mid-nineteenth century. Monitored
by a central regulatory authority, funds in the system were
successful in mitigating informational, moral hazard and
enforcement problems, and thus operated at a surplus in a
market where intermediation by the banks seems not to have
been possible. Created under special legislation, their goal
was to relieve poverty by providing credit to the "industri-
ous poor" on a large scale, at competitive interest rates,
without public funding. Evidence from the loan funds offers
new insights into capital formation in the Irish economy of
the nineteenth century and suggests that traditional notions
regarding the economic activities of the Irish poor may need
to be rethought; it is also relevant for development
economists studying current microcredit initiatives.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 916-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
