This paper examines how members sort across community-based microfinance groups, specifically Village Savings and Loan Associations in rural Malawi. Our central question is to ask whether such groups allow savers (especially commitment savers) to match with potential borrowers, thereby promoting financial intermediation. We analyse novel data in the form of a census of all 3,800 members of 150 ...

The development of ubiquitous computing and mobile commerce is premised on an infrastructure of interoperable networks, operating systems and applications. As technologies evolve to create this infrastructure this process sometimes gives rise to a standards competition. This research examines such a competition between mobile application development platforms and the resulting intermediation se...

In this article, we have elaborated a study over the nature of financial intermediation in Islamic banks by comparison to those of conventional ones. We have found a striking difference between two kinds of intermediation. We tried, from another side, to study the relationship between the capital level and deficiency risk relying on econometric model, and we have obtained a positive and signifi...

This paper investigates the issue of intermediation and the role of intermediaries in the innovation process. The aim of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, to review and synthesis the literature in this field; from this to develop a typology and framework of the different roles and functions of the intermediation process within innovation; lastly to try and operationalise the typology within th...

This paper uses variation in policies and institutional characteristics to evaluate the impacts of village-level microfinance institutions in rural Thailand. To identify impacts, we use policies related to the successful/unsuccessful provision of services as exogenous variation in effective financial intermediation. We find that institutions, particularly those with good policies, can promote a...

We study a dynamic model of financial intermediation in which interbank lending is subject to moral hazard, where intermediaries can divert funds towards inefficient projects. We show that despite the presence of moral hazard, secured lending contracts can discipline the investment choices of all market participants — even those with whom they are not directly contracting — thus partially overc...

In Broadcast Search (BS) an organization discloses the details of a problem to a community of potential solvers. An online intermediary often manages the process. This study investigates the problem solving practices of solvers. In particular it focuses on the intermediation services and knowledge sources thy use during BS. A questionnaire was distributed to successful solvers. Ninety-three com...

Many products and services are not sold on open platforms but on competing for-profit platforms, which charge buyers and sellers for access. What is the effect of for-profit intermediation on seller investment incentives? Since for-profit intermediaries reduce the available rents in the market, one might naively suspect that sellers have weaker investment incentives with competing for-profit pl...

A salient feature of over-the-counter (OTC) markets is intermediation: dealers buy from and sell to customers as well other dealers. Traditionally, the search-theoretic literature OTC has rationalized this a consequence random meetings ex post bargaining between investors. We show that neither these are necessary conditions for intermediation. build model fully decentralized market in which sea...