内容简介：
The Latin American Development Forum promotes debate and disseminates knowledge and analysis on economic and social development issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Institutional Sponsors of this series are the World Bank, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). It is often thought that promotion of specialized microfinance institutions is the best or only way forward. However, a strong mainstream financial system is also pro-poor--"perhaps even more so. While mainstream financial depth is measurably associated with lower poverty, for microfinance this is not yet so. The roles played by microfinance and mainstream finance in tackling poverty should be regarded as complementary and overlapping rather than as competing alternatives. The essential similarities between the two will become more evident as individual microfinance firms, or associations of firms, grow to the scale needed for sustainability. This title presents new empirical evidence on how financial sector policy can help the poor.