MICROFINANCE PAPER WRAP-UP: “Increasing Financial Inclusion in the Muslim World: Evidence from an Islamic Finance Marketing Experiment;” by Dean Karlan, Adam Osman, Nour Shammout; published by the World Bank Group

In spite of the growth of the Islamic finance sector, which promotes loans, insurance and other services that comply with the religious laws known as Shariah, financial inclusion rates in predominantly Muslim countries remain low. In collaboration with Tamweelcom, a microcredit institution in Jordan, the authors analyze how the following factors influence people’s decisions to borrow: