1、本科毕业论文外文翻译原 文 外文题目 Theme: Rural Finance Institutions and System Models of Rural Financial Institutions 出 处： Institute of Rural Development 作 者： Manfred Zeller 原 文 ： The Role of Rural Finance for Agricultural and Economic Growth, Food Security and Poverty Reduction Second, while agriculture is, relat
2、ively speaking, a declining sector in the course ofdevelopment, in many developing countries it is still a leading economic sector, the main exporter, and the major employer, especially for the poor and women. Improved financial markets accelerate agricultural and rural growth. Financial services as
3、sist households in maintaining food security and smoothing consumption, thereby safeguarding or enhancing labor productivity , the most important production factor of the poor. Because of agricultures strong forward and backward multiplier effects for the overall economy, economic growth in agricult
4、ure especially in subsectors that directly or indirectly benefit smallholders, tenants, and wage laborers is a key precondition for overall economic growth and poverty reduction. At present, most of the poor still live in rural areas. Any student of an introductory course in micro-economics or devel
5、opment economics learns that access to savings, credit and insurance services can have beneficial effects on households and their enterprises and therefore on economic growth, and that microfinance in particular may also contribute to more equitable growth. Access to credit, however, has an economic
6、 benefit only if and when that access generates a broadly defined net economic surplus after having deducted the private and social costs of loan provision (including the opportunity costs of scarce public funds in alternative poverty reduction policies). While the evidence on the impact of credit o
7、n household welfare, agricultural technology adoption, and on agricultural sector growth is mixed4 , many practical constraints (i.e. time and money) and methodological difficulties in estimating the impact of a policy or project with a reasonable probability of error exist Simple common sense tells
8、 us that savers who continue to deposit money for different motives, borrowers who continue to repay their loans, and clients paying regular premiums for health and life insurance over long periods actually derive an economic benefit. CHANGING WISDOMS AND POLICY OBJECTIVES IN RURAL FINANCE Since the
9、 mid 1980s, there has been a paradigm shift in financial policy (including rural finance) from subsidized credit to financial systems development. The old paradigm of sector directed, supply led and subsidized credit has been based on faulty assumptions about the willingness and ability of poor farm
10、ers and other entrepreneurs to pay for financial services, which led to faulty policy design and implementation. The new paradigm departs not from the need, but from the demand (i.e. willingness and ability to pay market prices) for savings, credit and insurance services by farmers and other entrepr
11、eneurs. Instead it focuses on building sustainable financial institutions and systems, and introduced the operational policy objective of financial sustainability of MFIs. The new paradigm recognizes that high transaction costs and risks that partly result from information asymmetries and moral haza
12、rd problems for both financial intermediaries and clients are some of the root causes of the gap between demand and supply. Therefore, the new paradigm places emphasis on searching for technological and institutional innovations (including suitable governance and incentive structures) to reduce the
13、costs and risks of financial intermediation. The new paradigm recognizes the possibility of market as well as government failure (i.e. institutional failure in general), and negates the thesis put forward by proponents of market liberalization that a “financial system which is not repressed would by
14、 itself function optimally”. The new paradigm in contrast sees financial market liberalization (e.g. with respect to interest rate formation) as a necessary but not sufficient condition for deepening financial systems. Moreover, as the required technological and institutional innovations needed to d
15、eepen the financial system and to serve poorer segments of the population can be readily copied by for-profit financial institutions, the resulting free-rider problem prevents the private sector from sufficiently investing (compared to socially optimal levels) in such innovations. In conclusion, pub
16、lic investment in pro-poor (and pro rural) financial innovation is required. This holds true not only for microfinance, but for rural finance as well. Thus, public investment in rural finance can be justified, for example, to fund (action)-research and promising institutional start-ups as well as in
17、stitutional expansion until reaching financial sustainability within reasonable time periods, and to support pilot experiments with promising new products, technology or technical assistance, such as for training of staff and transfer of best practices. Given the long gestation periods required in b
18、uilding sustainable institutions, public investment in institution-building requires long-term planning horizons with operational flexibility in instruments and timing. The required public investment in rural finance is more labor and knowledge-intensive, and far less capital-intensive than past inv
19、estments following the old paradigm. The triangle of microfinance: financial sustainability, outreach, and welfare impact Internationally agreed principal objectives of development cooperation are the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These set targets to reduce poverty and make im
20、provements in the various dimensions of poverty (or welfare) such as education, health, nutrition and womens empowerment Following the concept of a logical framework, (financial) sector policy objectives need therefore to be consistent with these principal objectives Microfinance as well as rural fi
21、nancial policy has to be evaluated against three objectives: financial sustainability, breadth and depth of outreach, and the welfare impact. Financial sector policy can support the Millenium Development Goals (and thus poverty reduction) in two ways: Indirectly, through supporting a sustainable financial system as a precondition for economic and social development. This indirect pathway includes causal chains that can be summarized under the thesis of poverty reduction through economic growth. An example of one of these causal chains is that owners of
