The capital structure of lending institutions has become an increasingly prominent issue in the world of finance. Contemporaneously, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have risen to the forefront as invaluable lending institutions in the development process. Since capital constraints have hindered the expansion of microfinance programs and microfinance organizations have had various degrees of sustainability, the question of how best to finance these organizations is a key issue. This paper explores how changes in capital structure could improve MFI efficiency and financial sustainability. I find causal evidence supporting the assertion that increased use of grants by large MFIs decreases operational self-sufficiency.

This paper finds households with children and elderly dependents, the “Sandwich Generation,” significantly reduce both college savings and stockholding. Having any elderly dependents decreases the probability of both stockholding and college savings by twice as much as poor personal health. Hence, these results have critical implications as they demonstrate the importance and magnitude of links between the pension system, college financial aid, and wealth accumulation. Elderly dependents limiting parental funds for offspring education can decrease offspring long-term earnings potential via decreased human capital accumulation. Furthermore, decreased stock holdings can decrease long-term wealth accumulation and thus intergenerational wealth transfers.

We analyze how children with mental disabilities influence parental portfolio allocation. We find that risky asset holding decreases among households with special needs children. However, conditional on participating in financial markets, households with special needs children invest a larger portion of their wealth in risky assets. As risky asset holding is a key component of wealth building, these findings have important implications for both policy and household wealth inequality.