USAID: Hoping for a demonstration effect

Abstract

The reference paradigm behind the DCA is the story of America’s successful shift from credit scarcity at the turn of the twentieth century to the successful tapping of the small- scale market for loans between the 1920s and 1950s by the Bank of America. Most US banks eventually jumped on the bandwagon and started borrowing and lending to the sectors of the American economy that were previously denied access to credit.