CERMi News
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Thursday, June 9, 2022
Publication
American Economic Association
MARIE BRIERE, JAMES POTERBA & ARIANE SZAFARZ
Precautionary Liquidity and Retirement Saving
This paper argues that role modeling can explain the impact of boardroom gender diversity on corporate performance. It theorizes that female workers are boosted by female leadership, gain increased motivation, and achieve greater productivity, thereby making their female directors more effective. We test this bottom–up approach to the trickle-down hypothesis on data hand-collected among local cooperatives providing microcredit in Senegal. All the organizations surveyed are similar and small, which allows us to use a homogenous performance metric. All of them outsource their human resource management to the same third party, which mitigates the risk of endogeneity. The data cover over 100,000 triads composed of gender dominance on the board, gender of CEO, and gender of credit officer. A better financial performance is achieved when the triad is gender-uniform—be it male or female—confirming the importance of role modeling and suggesting that the performance of female board members depends on the gender composition of the workforce.
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Publication
Small Business Economics
ANAIS PERILLEUX & ARIANE SZAFARZ
Women in the boardroom: a bottom–up approach to the trickle-down effect
This paper argues that role modeling can explain the impact of boardroom gender diversity on corporate performance. It theorizes that female workers are boosted by female leadership, gain increased motivation, and achieve greater productivity, thereby making their female directors more effective. We test this bottom–up approach to the trickle-down hypothesis on data hand-collected among local cooperatives providing microcredit in Senegal. All the organizations surveyed are similar and small, which allows us to use a homogenous performance metric. All of them outsource their human resource management to the same third party, which mitigates the risk of endogeneity. The data cover over 100,000 triads composed of gender dominance on the board, gender of CEO, and gender of credit officer. A better financial performance is achieved when the triad is gender-uniform—be it male or female—confirming the importance of role modeling and suggesting that the performance of female board members depends on the gender composition of the workforce.
Friday, March 11, 2022
Working Paper
WP CEBRIG 22-002
SIMON CORNEE, ANASTASIA COZARENCO, ARIANE SZAFARZ
The Changing Role of Banks in the Financial System: Social versus Conventional Banks
Social banks have emerged as a new group of banks that call themselves as “alternative”, “ethical”, “sustainable”, and “value-based”. Their small market share increases at a rapid pace and is still expected to grow in the future. Social banks are institutions with both (at least some) activities of financial intermediation and one or several non-financial missions, typically based on environmental and social values. By unpacking the observable, real-life differences between social banks and conventional banks, this chapter paves the way to theorizing the multidimensional characteristics of social banks within the global banking industry. Business models, governance issues, lending technologies; and social outcomes appear to be key aspects to understand how innovative, value-based, social banks work and how they might one day substantively affect mainstream banking business.
Monday, March 7, 2022
Working Paper
WP CEBRIG 22-001
ANASTASIA COZARENCO, VALENTINA HARTARSKA, ARIANE SZAFARZ
Monday, February 07, 2022
Publication
Discover our 17th CERMi Newsletter !
What you'll find in this edition :
Latest events at CERMi
Awards and prizes
Recent publications by CERMi members
Thursday, January 06, 2022
Call for papers
The 7th European Research Conference on Microfinance will take place in Glasgow in June 2022 and the call for abstracts is open (deadline: 15th February 2022). For more information about the conference and how to submit an abstract, please visit the website: https://www.ercm2022.com/. All subjects related to microfinance, broadly defined, are welcome.
Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Call for papers
Strategic Change is looking for papers on two topics to be put together in two special issues:
- Artificial Intelligence in Finance
- Digital transformation
To submit a paper, please send to carlo.milana@iol.it
Tuesday, January 04, 2022
Happy New Year !
Dear all,
Despite the ups-and-downs, we hope that 2021 has been a successful year for you and your organization.
CERMi wishes you all the best for the New Year.
Happy 2022 !
Monday, January 03, 2022
PhD Thesis Public Defense
“Microfinance and Industry Dynamics: Analyses of Regulation, Competition, and Collective Action” by Tristan CABALLERO-MONTES (Warocqué School of Business and Economics, UMONS), under the supervision of Prof. Marc Labie (UMONS & ULB, BE) and Dr Cécile Godfroid (UMONS, BE). On January 27, 2022.
Friday, December 17, 2021
Visiting Professors
Pr. Pascal Wélé (Université d'Abomey-Calavi, Benin) spent two months (November and December, 2021) at CERMi as part of a research project on microfinance regulation, in collaboration with Professor Marc Labie and Tristan Caballero-Montes. He was based at the Université de Mons (UMONS, BE).
Pr. Simon Cornée (Université de Rennes 1, FR) spent one week (September 2021) at CERMi as part of a course on microfinance at the EMP. He was based at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, BE).
Dr. Samuel Anokye Nyarko (Montpellier Business School, FR) spent one week (November 2021) at CERMi as part of a course on microfinance at the EMP. He was based at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, BE).
Pr. Anastasia Cozarenco (Montpellier Business School, FR) spent one week (December 2021) at CERMi as part of a course on microfinance at the EMP. She was based at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, BE).
Friday, October 29, 2021
CERMi Seminar
CERMi is pleased to invite you to the seminar 
that Samuel Anokye Nyarko (Montpellier Business School and CERMi ) will be presenting on Wednesday, November 24th, 2021 at 3.30pm at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (room R42.2.107).
You will find below the announcement for the seminar and attached a PDF announcement, that you may print for display on your announcement boards.
Please confirm your attendance to cermi@ulb.be at the earliest.
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Publication
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH
CÉCILE GODFROID, NAOME OTITI, ROY MERSLAND
Employee tenure and staff performance: The case of a social enterprise
The literature on social enterprises has largely examined tradeoffs at the organizational level. In this study, we examine tradeoffs at the employee level. By analyzing the case of an Ecuadorian microfinance institution, we show that the tenure of social enterprise employees affects individual social and financial performance differently: the relationship between tenure and social performance is positive, whereas the relationship between tenure and financial performance is an inverted U-shape. Furthermore, our results suggest that social enterprise employees with the longest tenure are the least inclined to experience tradeoff tensions.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Call for Papers
PRACTICAL ACTION PUBLISHING Special Edition: Food Loss and Waste
EDM invites researchers and practitioners to contribute unique articles to the upcoming special edition: Food loss and waste, agriculture and food systems in developing countries: emerging themes and issues The issue will be published in Autumn 2022. The deadline for abstracts is 1 February 2022 and 1 March 2022 for draft submissions.
EDM encourages critical thinking on how market systems and financial sectors can be more inclusive and sustainable, with concrete implications for designing, implementing, and evaluating programmes in the global South. EDM is essential reading for practitioners, researchers, donors, policymakers, and finance specialists that facilitate the benficial engagement of disadvantaged communities in economic sectors.
Contributions to EDM may include:
• Research article: original development-relevant research, peer-reviewed, up to 6000 words
• Perspectives from the field: ideas and experiences on entrepreneurship in developing countries, peer-reviewed, up to 4000 words
• Editorial: reflections on the state of market-oriented research and development practice
• Crossfire: debate between experts on the unknowns, dilemmas, and tensions in microfinance and enterprise development
• Book review: critical thoughts on relevant books and manuscripts
Articles should be submitted via EDM online submission and peer review system www.edmgr.com/edm
Download the pdf file to read more about the call for papers.