Pullulating from a handful of isolated experiments in the 1970s to a sophisticated network of over 140 million borrowers today, microfinance is a synecdoche for global trends toward market-based solutions to social problems. But in recent years economic crises and political attacks have raised doubts about its efficacy, begetting polemic debates and sometimes baseless assertions from both supporters and detractors of microfinance. The Credibility of Microcredit offers a more objective assessment of the merits and shortfalls of microfinance around the world by way of interdisciplinary...