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In China as in the rest of the world, microcredit has become increasingly popular as a tool for poverty alleviation. This book examines the microfinance revolution in China from a social capital perspective providing new insights into some of the difficulties encountered by microcredit programs in rural China. When microfinance and social capital are combined in an analysis, the purpose is often to explore how social capital is needed by potential clients in order to gain access to the program or how microcredit programs attempt to use the borrowers´ groups to create social capital in the local community. This book broadens the perspective to include the possession of social capital by the microcredit program itself. This is especially relevant in China, where microcredit programs often collaborate closely with local authorities that are often directly involved in program implementation. It is argued that many of the specific problems encountered by Chinese microcredit programs are caused by this cooperation, which means that program becomes indistinguishable from the local partner in the eyes of the villagers.

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Ane Bislev has a PhD in China Studies from Aarhus University in Denmark. She is currently working on a post. doc. project on informal finance in China´s rural areas.

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