What are the transaction costs of RFIs and how should they be measured?
What effects do real interest rates and other factors have on rural loans, deposits, and savings? What determines whether an RFI system is a net contributor to or a drain on public resources? And, what policy conclusions can be drawn from this analysis? To answer these questions, Desai and Mellor look at the literature on RFIs in high-, middle-, and low-income countries, both developed and developing. They include countries in four developing regions–Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Near East and Mediterranean Basin, and Latin America and the Caribbean–as well as Western Europe and North America. Drawing from a wealth of descriptive, cross-national material, the review includes detailed case studies of successful RFIs in several Asian countries: the Grameen Bank and the Sonali Bank in Bangladesh; cooperatives, nationalized commercial banks, and to some extent regional rural banks in India; the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives and lower-level cooperatives in Thailand; t
