Pages

Thursday, May 27, 2010

More on money flow

When you phrase a problem in terms of variables x and y and not real world quantities it allows you to solve it objectively without bringing in preconceived notions about the variables. For this same reason it is also helpful to look analogies. So here is one:

Lets say there is a pond into which water is poured from x different sources at various rates and leaves from y different sources at various rates. How does the water level change over time? To solve the problem you need to know the rates at which water enters and leaves the pond at different places relative to one another and the initial water level. Maybe valve two shuts off when valve one opens etc.

Now instead of a pond, lets say its a village. And instead of water, lets say its money coming in as loans, salaries and business revenues and leaving as loan repayments and purchases. How does the spending power of the village change over time? When you structure the problem in this way, you can play with these rates and quantities and see what it does.

You might argue that this kind of approach obfuscates the local changes: what happened to the specific person who took *your* money? To this I say that if we care about real change, what matters is the system as a whole and not local changes. Local changes can fool you. It could well be that one person's gain is another's loss. Or consider this, in a wave, each water molecule only moves a little so if you only knew how individual molecules were moving you could well miss the tsunami.

Of course, the pond analogy leaves out one very important thing: innovation. Innovation can be a complete game changer. But more about that in another post...

4 comments:

  1. But there are serious questions now on the impact that MFI's cliam to make or have made, other than the Economic growth is there a Economic Development thats been taking place? I think this question is not well answered.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Economic growth and development attributed to microfinance has been elusive. Some incremental benefits have been shown in some circumstances. However the change is not obvious. For more about our approach and thinking on this read the post in March titled 'The Madura Experiment'.

    ReplyDelete
  3. All thanks to Elegant loan firm for helping me secure a loan of $1,000,000.00 USD to establish my Foodstuff supermarket business in different places. I have been looking for financial help for the past four years. But now, I am completely stressed free with all the help of the loan officer Mr Russ Harry. So, I will advise any person who seeks funds to improve his or her business to contact this great firm for help, and it is real and tested. You can reach him through- Email --Elegantloanfirm@Hotmail.com-  or Whats-app +393511617486.

    ReplyDelete