Category: Finance

One of America’s most affordable paths to homeownership is slipping away. At manufactured home parks – sometimes called trailer parks or mobile home parks – rents are rapidly rising due to large-scale buyouts by private equity firms. Although private equity’s foray into the housing market is not new, the buyout of mobile home parks by […]

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has made great strides in financial inclusion. In the past five years, many underserved customers were able to shift from access to basic financial products to tapping their phones, scanning QR codes, using voice commands for everyday transactions, or even accessing investment products so that the money in […]

When context insights stay hidden On the same day, two women walk into branches of the same microfinance institution in different regions of Cambodia. They are the same age, have the same type of business, and are requesting the same loan amount. A year later, one has expanded her small business and enrolled her daughter […]

The future financial sector regulator staff is an AI engineer, a data scientist, a blockchain expert, or some other type of expert typically unseen in the couloirs of central banks and financial authorities. That was, at least, a takeaway from the literature review CGAP recently completed for a project analyzing the future of financial sector […]

“Being an artist is not viewed as a real job.” It’s a sentiment I’ve heard time and again, one that echoes across studios, rehearsal halls and kitchen tables – a quiet frustration that the labor of making art rarely earns the legitimacy or security afforded to other kinds of work. I study how artists work […]

For years, Donald Trump’s distinctive, large and bold signature has captured the public’s attention. Not only did it recently come to light that his signature appeared in a book that Jeffrey Epstein received for his 50th birthday, but it fits neatly alongside Trump’s long history of brash self-adulation. “I love my signature, I really do,” […]

When it comes to setting monetary policy for the world’s largest economy, what data drives decision-making? In ordinary times, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee, which usually meets eight times a year, have a wealth of information at their disposal, including key statistics such as monthly employment […]

Walk into any grocery store to stock up for Halloween and you will discover that, for chocolate treats, you have two basic choices: Will it be Mars or Hershey? I often buy both, but that is beside the point. The point is that the two giants compete for market share, but both enjoy robust sales. […]

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is the largest, most effective tool the U.S. has to reduce food insecurity. As of late 2025, it helps more than 42 million people – including 2 million Pennsylvanians and nearly half a million Philadelphians – buy groceries. But starting Nov. 1, 2025, Pennsylvania will stop distributing SNAP […]

When Malawi suffered a severe drought in 2016, VisionFund Malawi (VFM) used a returnable grant to test and learn the boundaries of a good recovery lending program. The board was initially cautious, questioning whether the management team’s good intentions were risking the viability of the microfinance institution (MFI) itself, but the end results were overwhelmingly […]