Resumen

FUENTES MENDEZ, Luis Alberto  y  GUTIERREZ, Alejandro. Paradigmas del mercado financiero rural en países en desarrollo. Agroalim [online]. 2006, vol.11, n.23, pp.21-41. ISSN 1316-0354.

Abstract The objective of this article is i) to analyze the paradigms that explain how rural financial markets in developing countries function and ii) to evaluate the results of public policy associated with each paradigm concerning the access poor rural families have to financial services. The paradigm of Specialized Agricultural Credit Institutions points out that in light of credit market problems where informal money lenders monopolize the market with interest rates of money-lenders and formal financial organizations do not offer sufficient financial resources for development, the State should intervene to guarantee access to credit.  The derived policies are created by specialized public organizations, subsidized by active interest rates and regulate the public and private bank to assign part of the credit portfolio for agricultural financing.  The paradigm of Financial Markets proposes that a market without regulations approaches a model of perfect competition and as such, suggests no State intervention in its management to obtain maximum economic efficiency.  This paradigm includes among its policies, liberating interest rates, eliminating obligatory credit portfolios and liquidating public financial organizations.  The paradigm of imperfect information points out that efficient and equitable management of the financial market is based on the design of institutions and organization that avoid problems generated by the existence of information failures (problems of evaluation, incentives and reimbursement).  In the framework of this paradigm, rural financial organizations should design and apply technologies that take advantage of the positive experiences of the informal and formal financial sector to improve the form where information between lenders and borrowers is captured, processed and transmitted and thus improve access for poor families to financial services.

Palabras clave : rural financial market; market failures; information failures; rural savings and loan; micro-financing.