<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Weber, Olaf</style></author></authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Impact Measurement in Microfinance: Is the measurement of the Social Return on Investment an Innovation in Microfinance?</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Journal of Innovation Economics (Cairn)Journal of Innovation Economics (Cairn)</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2013</style></year></dates><volume><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">11</style></volume><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">149-171</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">What indicators can be used to measure the impact of microfinance?&lt;br/&gt;Microcredit and its umbrella term microfinance significantly increased their&lt;br/&gt;popularity over the last years. Though some negative issues especially with&lt;br/&gt;respect to overindebtedness and high interest rates are discussed as well,&lt;br/&gt;microfinance is seen as an effective and innovative measure for alleviating&lt;br/&gt;poverty. But what is the outcome of microfinance? Does it really alleviate&lt;br/&gt;poverty? Does it outplay other measures of development aid? Which impact&lt;br/&gt;is most important (Hermes, Lensink, 2007b)?&lt;br/&gt;This paper describes concepts and studies that intend to measure the&lt;br/&gt;impact of microfinance. We will describe and exemplarily use methods of&lt;br/&gt;outreach measurement on the basis of mixmarket.org data. Outreach measurement&lt;br/&gt;is used in many studies on the impact of microfinance. In addition&lt;br/&gt;to this we will describe social cost-benefit analysis and we will introduce and&lt;br/&gt;discuss the social return on investment (SROI) concept as an alternative concept for measuring the impact of microfinance.&lt;br/&gt;The concepts will be applied to an imaginary microfinance institution, MicroImpact, to test&lt;br/&gt;whether and how they are applicable and what advantages and drawback of&lt;br/&gt;the concepts are. Let us start with a short description of microfinance and&lt;br/&gt;microcredit and its intended impacts. We will use the term microfinance for&lt;br/&gt;a group of products and services such as micro-loans, microcredit, or microsavings.&lt;br/&gt;Microcredit is used as a synonym for micro-loans.</style></abstract></record></records></xml>