How does microfinance prosper? An analysis of environmental, social, and governance context

The spotlight of this study is to examine whether environmental, social, and governance performance affects the financial performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs). The topic has been of much interest to researchers and policymakers due to increased awareness among stakeholders on the adverse social and environmental impacts of business actions. Using a dataset covering 5 years for 62 MFIs across 34 countries, we find that environmental and governance performance has no impact on the financial performance of MFIs. As for the social-financial performance nexus, our results reveal a positive relationship using the depth of outreach as proxy of social performance. However, when women empowerment is used as a proxy for social performance, evidence suggest presence of negative relationship. The study contributes to the literature by providing new evidence on the relationship between environmental, social, and governance and financial performance from microfinance industry. Our results are robust to a variety of econometric specifications and have significant policy implications for donors, investors, MFIs, and regulators.