The Financial Markets in Low-Income Urban Communities: The Case of Sapang Palay

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Very little has been written about the informal credit markets (ICMs) despite their prevalence in the economies of LDCs. This is probably due to the imported economic theories applied to LDCs. Such theories assume that the features in advanced economies are present in LDCs. Consequently, the policy prescriptions derived from such analyses are often irrelevant to the needs of LDCs. This paper shows the operations of the informal credit markets in a low-income urban Filipino community. Specifically, this paper focuses on the major participants and the size of ICMs, its structure and role in savings