David Roodman's Microfinance Open Book Blog

 

Praise for Due Diligence

Roodman has been the most consistent and articulate analyst of microcredit in recent years. I hope this book reaches a wide readership and brings lasting, universal improvements in financial services for low-income people.—Muhammad Yunus, founder, Grameen Bank, and winner, Nobel Peace Prize

At a time when the pendulum of public opinion on microfinance is swinging from exuberance to cynicism, Roodman’s balanced, evidence-based assessment is a timely and seminal contribution. This is an essential read for practitioners, promoters, and critics of microfinance.—Sir Fazle Abed, founder and chair, BRAC

Due Diligence is the result of years of rigorous, fact-based analysis and deep thinking of the type microfinance sorely needs. Anyone interested in the future of financial inclusion should read Roodman’s work.—Carlos Danel Cendoya, cofounder, Compartamos Banco

It is, quite simply, the best book I have ever read about microfinance.—Alex Counts, president, CEO and founder, Grameen Foundation

Roodman is a remarkable scholar, equally at ease collecting information in the slums of Bangladesh as writing complex computer code, and Due Diligence is a very good book not just on microcredit but on development more generally.—Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution

Due Diligence is the microfinance book that grown-ups have been waiting for, as complex and fascinating as its subject. Roodman brushes away the slogans and the oversimplified dogmas to uncover microfinance’s long history and multifarious present. It’s required reading for anybody who seeks to engage seriously with the questions of whether and how microfinance works. And best of all, it’s a pleasure to read.—Felix Salmon, Reuters

Microfinance has more than its fair share of myths, both positive and negative. It’s a field in desperate need of cool, rational, and evidence-based analysis, and David Roodman has proved that he is singularly capable of providing it.—Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist and Adapt

A voice of reason amid the sound and fury of the microfinance debate.—Claire Provost, The Guardian

No other book on microfinance is at once so well-informed and so objective. Roodman has an insider’s depth of understanding, while his position outside the field allows him to look with clear—and penetrating—eyes.—Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director, Center for Financial Inclusion

Roodman pulls off the feat of examining microfinance from many angles without losing focus. The result is the most thoughtful book about the industry yet published—and consequently one of the most thought-provoking.—Stuart Rutherford, author of The Poor and Their Money and Portfolios of the Poor

This is a splendid book. It’s original and very smart. It’s an engaging read. Best of all, it displays a high order of intellectual honesty. None of this is any surprise to those of us who have followed Roodman’s microfinance blog, which is the only one I never delete before reading.—Richard Rosenberg, CGAP

David Roodman does the kind of analysis the research world needs more of: bringing together quantitative studies, qualitative studies, and historical context into a rich, holistic, hype-free picture. It’s not just the most thorough and balanced assessment of microfinance we’ve seen—it’s a case study in how to do thorough and balanced assessment.—Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, founders, GiveWell

Roodman’s book astonished me. It is well researched, very well written, and perceptive. It could aid the microfinance industry in a shift from helping poor people cope with poverty to helping them move out of poverty.—Deepa Narayan, Director of the World Bank’s Voices of the Poor and Moving Out of Poverty series and former Senior Adviser on Poverty Reduction

Microcredit perhaps never deserved the uncritical kudos it received between 1997 and 2006. Nor does it deserve the vilification since. David Roodman’s is an important voice in looking at the field without prejudice. He comes up with several insights which will be useful for re-jigging the field.—Vijay Mahajan, Chairman, BASIX and chair of executive committee, CGAP

Due Diligence is a balanced, respectful, diagnostic effort to make microfinance a more powerful tool for social progress. For microfinance activists Roodman has written a page turner. Obligatory reading if you want to call yourself a microfinance leader.—Jonathan Lewis, founder and chair, MicroCredit Enterprises

This incredibly thorough and supremely careful public examination of microfinance is already part of the canon in the field. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t read Due Diligence can legitimately claim a serious interest in microfinance.—Timothy Ogden, cofounder and editor-in-chief, Philanthropy Action

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