Many factors innuence a learning process and the performance of a learned classiier. In this paper we investigate the performance eeects of class distribution in the training set. We also study diierent methods of measuring performance based on cost models and the performance eeects of training class distribution with respect to the diierent cost models. Observations from these eeects help us d...

In most developing countries a shortage of long-term, local-currency fi nancing for small-scale infrastructure projects impedes local economic development. Inadequate fi scal transfers, little own source revenue and low creditworthiness make it diffi cult for local governments to fully fund projects on their own. Th is paper proposes the use of project fi nance as a means to attract fi nancing ...

In this paper, we examine whether the imperfections in the credit market spill over to the labor market. We examine the case of a country that experienced a very high degree of imperfections in the financial markets, but underwent substantial changes in 1992 due to the liberalization brought by the European unification and other institutional changes. Italy is therefore a good laboratory to stu...

This paper introduces the concept of the financial possibility frontier as a constrained optimum level of financial development to gauge the relative performance of financial systems across the globe. This frontier takes into account structural country characteristics, institutional, and macroeconomic factors that impact financial system deepening. We operationalize this framework using a bench...

Mobile phones promote financial inclusion in developing nations by enabling access to credit savings, and transfer services. These payment systems rarely achieve nationwide usage that is sufficient for network effects, a problem that existing literature attributed to exogenous factors such as regulations, poverty, and infrastructure costs. This paper argues that banks, telecoms, and governments...

Since 1989, CRS Senegal has been implementing microfinance (MF) activities in partnership with the local Catholic Church dioceses and Caritas offices, using the village banking methodology. In 1999, CRS and Caritas Senegal began a MF institutional transformation process that joined the most successful village banking program in the diocese of Thiès and two CRS MF projects in the Casamance regio...